


his sword's twin

by angel_deux



Series: two halves of a sword [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cersei is more sympathetic here I think, F/M, Jaime's POV of 'two halves of a soul', No Incest, POV Jaime Lannister, Pining, again there are implications but no one acts on anything, i am very much a huge liar and this thing will be enormous and im sorry, i told yall this would be a oneshot and also short, it might be even longer than the other one tbh bc Jaime is a complicated guy, mentions of child abuse, minor Theon/Sansa, related info: not a great portrayal of tywin, this one has SO MUCH MORE PINING
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-05-16 14:10:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 47,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19319776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_deux/pseuds/angel_deux
Summary: Jaime's POV of 'two halves of a soul'Jaime's soulmark is a sword on his shoulder. His twin sister Cersei starts being especially mean to Brienne Tarth after seeing the other girl's soulmark at a slumber party.Those two things are probably not related.





	1. I shook on it. I meant it.

**Author's Note:**

> So I was definitely going to make this short and sweet and only cover the major milestones in "two halves of a soul", but then I started writing it and decided to make things about 10x more complicated for myself, because I don't know any other way to be. 
> 
> Where "two halves of a soul" had a lot of Brienne + The Starks, this one is more focused on the Lannisters, obviously. Jaime and Cersei get a lot of play but there's still no incest. 
> 
> I'm going to TRY not to let this balloon out of control, but writing Jaime is a lot more fun than I expected, so who knows what's going to happen. It'll have the same 7 chapters, with Jaime's POV of all the major Jaime/Brienne scenes, and Jaime's POV of the fallout of those scenes, including the 'top me' tweet, which is the thing I'm probably looking forward to the most.

Jaime Lannister never figures out exactly  when his soulmark appears, but he knows it’s sometime after his eighth nameday party. A pool party that his Aunt Genna devised for he and his twin sister Cersei. They’d been splashing around in the pool all day, his back completely exposed, but no one mentioned it. He must not have had it then.

And he and Cersei went swimming again only a few days after that, so obviously it wasn’t around then, either. She would have said.

His little brother Tyrion is the one who spies it first. Jaime is pulling him around the pool on an inflatable raft, pretending to be a seahorse while Tyrion is King Merman, and Tyrion asks, “why do you have a sword on your back?”

They run into the house still dripping and smelling of chlorine. Tyrion helps him look at this sudden soulmark in the mirror, holding up a handheld one so Jaime can see. The sword is on his left shoulderblade, and it looks very realistic. When he moves, it almost changes colors, like it’s sitting next to a fireplace somewhere, and the fire is making pretty shadows over it. It’s red and gold, and there’s a big red ruby in the middle of the hilt.

“It’s so _cool,_ ” he says, because he does not yet possess the words to describe the other things he is feeling.

Primarily, it is _relief_. It is hope. It is this nameless welling feeling in his chest that’s like an echo of future love. He’s only ever felt love for his family – for Cersei and for Tyrion, really. He loves his father, but that’s a more complicated feeling than the simplicity of the adoration he has for his twin and his little brother. And now his soulmate, whoever they are. Jaime knows he will love them. Jaime is half in love with them already, just because he knows that they will love him too.

 

* * *

 

Cersei is less excited.

“I’m your soulmate,” she says. “Remember?”

Earlier that year, they’d drawn lions on each other’s arms. Cersei was despondent that they hadn’t matched exactly, because everything they did needed to match exactly, but she wouldn’t let Tyrion help draw them, so it was inevitable. Jaime just wasn’t as good at drawing as Cersei was, so hers looked a little lopsided and funny.

Still, Jaime knew it was what it _represented_ that mattered, anyway. They were made for each other. Meant for each other. They didn’t need any stupid _real_ soulmarks to tell them that. They could make their own.

The night their father saw the lions was the first time he hit Jaime for something other than reading. It was always just swats, really, with the back of Tywin’s hand connecting with Jaime’s face or stomach or the side of his head. Small, stinging rebukes not meant to hurt so much as _correct._ Like a shock collar for a dog. Jaime would later feel bad classifying it as abuse _,_ even though he knew it fit the bill by most estimations. It was just the way Tywin _was_. As a child, Jaime considered himself lucky that Tywin never hit him with a closed first.

They’d figured out Jaime was dyslexic early on, because Cersei learned to read quickly and would always have to help Jaime after she was finished with her assignments, sounding out the words for him when the letters stopped making sense. It didn’t take very long for a specialist at the school to confirm what Tywin suspected. He was stony-faced and seemed understanding enough when the specialist was talking, but he was angry when they got home, like dyslexia was something that Jaime had decided to do just to be a bother. He took to sitting with Jaime and forcing him to read until he could figure out the words himself, and he’d hit the back of his head if he got something wrong, and he’d hit him harder if Jaime or Cersei would start to cry about it. That was bad enough, but the way he reacted when he saw the lions was different. It was _fury_. Jaime had never known his father to be furious.

It’s easy to convince a child of wrongness, especially when you are that child’s father, and the only parent he knows. Tywin had always been an indifferent figure of authority in the house, but on that night he roared at them, and at Jaime in particular.

“You are brother and sister,” he said when he hit him.

“You are Lannisters,” he said, nonsensically, another time.

“Haven’t you brought me enough shame?” he asked once.

They learned quickly that Tywin wouldn’t ever hit Tyrion. Not his _small_ son. His dwarf son. The son whose birth killed his wife and soulmate. No, he would ignore Tyrion and mock Tyrion and quietly, futilely loathe Tyrion, but he would not raise a hand to him. And he wouldn’t hit beautiful Cersei, either, no matter how angry she tried to make him, to draw the ire to herself. It was Jaime who endured their father’s wrath, because Tywin thought Jaime was strong enough to take it.

It was a horrible parenting system, obviously. Jaime won’t realize _how_ horrible until he starts blathering on about it one night in his early twenties, pleasantly buzzed in Robb Stark's apartment. He’ll look around the room and see the horrified faces of all his friends and realize _oh, right. Most parents don’t do that._

But this period of Tywin's rage didn’t last very long. Someone – Aunt Genna or Uncle Kevan, probably – must have talked to him about how it was _unseemly_ that his children were so afraid of him, so he went back to indifference and learned to restrain his temper. He was still likely to chastise Jaime and Cersei if they spent too much time together, and he could still be cruelly mocking with the insults, but that was easier to deal with. It didn’t need to be permanent, anyway, because the results it got were permanent enough: Cersei and Tyrion rarely talked back to their father after the first few times they saw Jaime suffer for their rebellions. Tyrion became twice as clever as he already was, and Cersei grew cunning, and she learned to flatter her way into their father's good graces. Jaime wasn’t sure, exactly, what _he_ learned from the experience. Maybe it was just that he learned how to take a hit, or maybe it was that he learned he would do _anything_ for his siblings.

 

* * *

 

When he sees the sword on his back for the first time, Jaime feels relief. He feels hope. He feels _safe_ , because he knows he can show the soulmark to his father. Offer it up.

 _See_? _I’m not broken. You don’t need to worry about us anymore._

Cersei looks at him with naked betrayal when he lifts up his shirt at the dinner table for observation, but she doesn’t say anything. She knows it’s better for them both if Tywin is aware.

Their father frowns at the symbol. Touches it briefly.

“Good,” he says. “Though if they aren’t acceptable, you don’t have to be with them. Not everyone sees soulmates as a positive thing.”

“I know,” Jaime says, and Cersei looks relieved, but Jaime knows it doesn’t matter _who_ his soulmate is. He will find them acceptable no matter what.

 

* * *

 

Cersei doesn’t get a soulmark as early as Jaime does. She doesn’t get hers until she’s a junior in high school, years and years later. So Jaime hides his to make her feel better. No one outside his family even knows what it looks like. He hardly ever goes swimming shirtless, and when he does, he wears big bandages over it, slapping them on to keep curious eyes from figuring out there’s anything about him that doesn’t match his twin.

Most people at school probably assume he doesn’t have one. Or they assume he and Cersei _do_ match in everything. He hears the jokes often enough. They do everything together, and he hasn’t ever dated anyone. Of _course_ people joke. How could he explain to them that Cersei's grief at her blank skin hurts him more than his lack of dates ever could? Or that he doesn’t see the point in being with anyone but the owner of the twin to his sword? They’re in high school. People aren’t supposed to care that deeply about _forever_ in high school. But Jaime just can’t be bothered with dating when he knows it’s not going to last. It hardly seems worth the effort.

And after the Aerys thing, anyway, people probably don’t even _want_ to date him. Jaime learns to laugh things off and keep himself distant from the opinions of the others at school. Getting angry felt good for a while, but Tyrion helped him see that it would only hurt in the end. Tyrion also helped him see that _Tywin_ would have probably reacted with anger, too, which makes the laughter easier. Laugh everything off, and no one can touch you. Their words don’t matter. How could they? He is a Lannister, and the opinions of anyone outside the family are worth nothing.

 

* * *

 

It’s not like Jaime doesn’t know he’s an asshole. By his junior year of high school, that’s been long established. He doesn’t know if he can pinpoint the exact moment when _asshole_ became his default state, but he thinks the slide into it was probably inevitable.

Tyrion tries to convince him that it’s all Cersei’s fault, but Jaime knows better than that. Sometimes she says things that are cruel enough to surprise him, but he never argues, and he always goes along with her. Tyrion has blinders on when it comes to Jaime. He insists that Jaime is _different_. He’s a clever kid aside from that, but love can blind people to the worst faults of the ones they care for. Jaime knows that better than anyone.

 

* * *

 

He does _notice_ when Cersei starts picking on Brienne Tarth specifically. Neither of them have ever really been nice to the girl. She’s very _tall_ , Brienne. She’s one of those girls who got tall early. And most of those girls, like Brienne and Cersei's mutual friend Sansa Stark, got tall and _then_ grew into their looks. Like they were stretched and weird for a few years in middle school, like their features took their time settling once they were up there. But Brienne gets tall and awkward-looking in middle school, and that’s exactly how she stays.

She’s not a high school cliché of an ugly girl, so at least she has _that_. She’s got plenty of friends. She excels at soccer, and everyone on her team seems to love her. She practically grew up as one of the Starks, and is enviously tight with both Robb and Sansa. Jaime’s never had good friends like that outside of his family, so he takes notice of them. She’s always surrounded by Starks and their other constant orbiters – their cousin Jon and their friend Theon Greyjoy, who seems to live in the Stark basement for some reason that no one has ever been able to figure out.

But even despite that support network, Brienne is an easy target for Cersei, in part because she never fights back. Cersei thinks she’s too stupid to understand the jokes at first, but then she realizes that Brienne is just good at being blank-faced, and of course she takes it as a challenge. She says underhanded shit right in front of _Sansa_ , too, which is always funny because Sansa's naïve and trusting and too kind to think that Cersei's surface-sweet words hide anything poisonous beneath them. _Brienne_ notices, of course, but she’s noble about it, which is another desperately annoying thing to Cersei. She never tries to get Sansa to stop hanging out with them. She never tries to expose Cersei and Jaime for the false friends they are. She just avoids them when she can, and suffers them when she can’t, and Cersei plays with her the way a cat plays with a mouse for a bit before killing it.

 

* * *

 

It becomes so much more pointed, though, after the slumber party.

Cersei has always been generous with her disdain. There’s so much of it in her, and there are so many people who deserve it. Jaime is happy to join her when she chooses a target, but he prefers it when the targets fight back. Not that it’s a deal-breaker when they don’t; he has no issues helping Cersei in her crusade to break Brienne Tarth. That’s the part that will haunt him for literal _years_ after: he doesn’t mind. Even though he doesn’t understand it, he doesn’t fight it, and he doesn’t mind.

It would be easier if he could convince himself that Cersei has manipulated him, or she has enthralled him, or she has somehow sapped his will from him, but it isn’t that. He knows that Cersei says many unkind things, and she is unkind to Tyrion, and she isn’t even always kind to _him_ , but he loves her. She is his sister. She is his twin. And if he sometimes stands in the mirror and holds the handheld one over his shoulder so that he can be reminded that it won’t always be _just_ his family, then it’s a passing thing, and it is not stronger than the desire to see Cersei happy, always.

“ _She_ has a soulmark,” Cersei says, the day after the slumber party, sitting on his bed beside him. “You should have seen them all cooing over it. I felt like I was going mad. Like I’m the only one who can see how positively hideous she is.”

She looks at Jaime, and she watches for his reaction. Jaime had, in truth, only been half paying attention; he’d gotten lost trying to figure out a paragraph for his Dothraki class.

“She is quite ugly,” he says, assuring. “But yours is probably just late. It happens. What was it, thirty percent of girls don’t get theirs until after high school?”

“It’s not about _me_ , Jaime,” Cersei says, but Jaime knows that’s not true, and he favors her with a wry look. She huffs and smiles in admittance and slumps with her head on his shoulder.

“Fine. Why should Brienne Tarth get a soulmate?”

“Maybe he’s terrible,” Jaime suggests. “Awful and smells bad and is even more hideous than her.”

“No,” Cersei muses. She picks at a thread on his t-shirt. “I think he’s…he’s probably the best person in the world, and it isn’t _fair_.”

“Wasn’t fair for the gods to give her those teeth, either, but they went ahead and did it,” Jaime points out, keeping his voice cheerful so she’ll feel better. “Wasn’t fair of the gods to take mother from us, but they went ahead and did it.”

“Tyrion did that,” Cersei reminds him, and he sighs. Pushes up and away from her, knocking her head away from his shoulder. She always has to do that. Always has to ruin nice moments.

“I have homework to do,” he says, and Cersei huffs again. She knows exactly why he’s kicking her out, but she’ll pretend she doesn’t. It’s the game they’re constantly playing. Seeing what his limits are for the cruelty that she shows their brother. She leaves, and she won’t talk to him for a few hours, but then she’ll be back, and it’ll start again.

He texts Tyrion to see if he’s home yet, in the basement where he spends most of his time. When he gets an affirmative, he picks up his notebook. He gave it a shot; Tyrion will help him figure out the rest.

 

* * *

 

Over the next few weeks, Cersei picks on Brienne with a tenacity that’s unique for her. She has even apparently forgotten her grudge with pretty, sly Margaery Tyrell, who had previously committed the ultimate sin of kissing Jaime on the cheek under some mistletoe last year and then apologizing to Cersei for it in front of everyone, like Cersei was Jaime’s jealous girlfriend who needed to be placated. Jaime had thought the jape a little funny, but Cersei had simmered, and her grudges have a tendency to last. She kept Jaime away from her campaign against Margaery, probably fearing that Margaery might find a way to tempt or cajole him to her side, but she has no such reservations with Brienne Tarth. Maybe she assumes him immune to Brienne’s dubious charms – probably true – or maybe she just really does hate the girl, because she’s always pulling Jaime in to compound whatever insult has found its way to her tongue.

It’s almost elegant, the way she does it. Like most things Cersei does.

It’s also incomprehensible to him, largely, but sort of fun.

Again, these things will haunt him, later. It wasn’t even like he was getting any real _enjoyment_ out of it, but he also never considered asking Cersei to stop.  Or even asking her _why_.

The one thing Jaime has always been confident about are his looks. He knows what they are, because people never stop telling him. He knows he’s attractive, and that he’s got the kind of good bone structure that means he will likely be better looking the older he gets. Cersei has it too: the strong jaw and the full lips that made their mother such a standout. They have their father’s dignified bearing and their mother’s softer graces, and together they are beautiful and formidable, and a girl like Brienne Tarth should want at least _one_ of them, if not both of them. Their insults should cut her to the quick.

But she never reacts. She just looks at Cersei, and she hears the insult that Cersei imparts. And then she turns towards Jaime. Her face shows nothing, but he can almost hear her flat, deep voice in his head. _Well, go on, then_. He’ll say whatever he has to say as her unsettlingly blue eyes watch him. Then she’ll turn on her heel and walk away, and he’ll feel the frustration of another failure.

 

* * *

 

He gets his first reaction from her in Mr. Selmy’s class. History. The only class he kind of likes, so technically it’s his favorite. Selmy partners them for a project, and Jaime turns to give Brienne a knowing smile. For a second, her expression is a mingling of disgust and agony, and then she goes all blank again and looks down at her notebook. She scribbles something, and she doesn’t look back at him, but he can see the tension in her shoulders, and he feels an answering tension in his own.

 

* * *

 

Disgust. Agony.

 

* * *

 

Brienne Tarth is one of the smartest people in their grade. He knows this because she’s always doing well on tests and things. Jaime doesn’t do so well on those. His middling grades are mostly because he does his homework and makes sure to fulfill any class participation requirements, because he can’t afford to lose points in those easy areas when he knows his test taking skills are weak. So when he sits down in front of her at the end of the period, he knows he has to help however he can. He won’t accept charity just because she’s smarter than him. He won’t be able to write much of the paper, but he will help in any other way he can.

He hears the things that people say about him. They see _him_ receive tests back just the same as he sees Brienne, so he knows she’s likely seen those red Ds stamped on his exams. He knows she probably thinks him a total fucking idiot, in addition to being an asshole, and so when he sits down he’s hoping he can manage to be at least _passably_ polite, because he needs this grade and because Cersei isn’t here to impress anyway.

When he sits down, and he crosses his arms on the back of the chair, she watches him. Careful, blank. Like a fawn regarding an approaching bear.

“What’s the plan?” he asks. She looks down at her notebook when she speaks.

“I’ve written down an idea. Art in armor from the Age of Heroes. The decorations, ornamentation. Things the people of Westeros did to mark their armor. A lot of the houses included their iconography in their weapons and armor, and some of it was pretty detailed.”

“I like it,” he says, and he does. The look she sends him is wary, but she continues. She floats the idea of going to an exhibition of weaponry through the ages at the city’s museum over the weekend. Jaime’s schedule is clear, and he actually likes the idea. It might be fun. She also somehow knows an _armorer_ , which is very cool, and she thinks they can get an interview with him.

He’s impressed, and relieved that she’s taking this so seriously, and he laughs a little. She’s looking at him when he does, and her face does this thing where it seems to physically radiate disappointment, and she sighs at him.

“No, no,” he says quickly. “This is amazing, don’t get me wrong. You’re very thorough.”

“But?” she asks, one eyebrow up.

There hadn’t been a _but_ at the end of that sentence. Not like she seems to think, anyway. He was mostly just wondering how the hell a person _becomes_ an armorer in this day and age.

“But what?” he asks, stupidly. She goes all cold. Ice cold. Her voice _hurts_ when she speaks, like her words are expertly thrown daggers. And it’s like she’s aiming those daggers at herself, saying all these terrible things about herself, but the flight trajectory is somehow directly hitting _him_. Blaming him. Damning him for being such a fucking dick.

“But I’m very boring?” she starts. “Or geeky? Or a freak for thinking this is interesting? Or was it one of the old staples? Like that I’m ugly, and mannish, and my freckles are annoying, and my teeth are too big? Or my shoulders? Or my very flat chest?”

Actually, he hadn’t really noticed how big her shoulders are, but he certainly does _now_.

And it’s not like she’s not wrong. He _has_ said the rest of it. He’s thrown words at her so casually. Biting, hateful words tossed off like they’re not worth anything. That’s why those dagger points hit home now, because it’s like a revelation that she’s been _collecting_ those words. Keeping them close to the chest after he’s lobbed them her way. It costs him nothing to be an asshole to her, and she’s been hiding her hurt and thinking about the things he’s said long after he has said them, and there is a brief twinge of conscience because she reminds him of Tyrion. Tyrion, in all his strength, in all his cleverness, bearing the wounds that the world so willingly delivers to him. He never lets them win, but Jaime sees the way they pierce his armor against his best efforts.

He stares into Brienne Tarth’s eyes, and he feels _sorry_. They’re very blue, and very big, and they _see_ him. Or they seem to see him, anyway. Far more than he wants them to.

“I’m sorry,” she says, as if she has read his mind. Dry and biting, fiercer than he’s ever heard her, and he is _fascinated_. He has never heard her say so much at once. “Did I take all your material? You should ask your sister for some new insults. Hers are always cleverer, anyway.”

Where has _this_ girl been hiding? Awkward and clumsy except on the soccer field, yes. Quiet and stuttering unless she’s around her Stark friends and the people who orbit them, yes. But not _this_. Strong and warlike. He laughs a little, and he hears the way it shakes. She has somehow bit into the heart of his insecurity, and he wonders if she’s even realized it.

 _Cersei has always been cleverer, anyway_.

 

* * *

 

And then he is for some reason chasing her down the hall even though she _clearly_ wants to get away from him. He’s proposing truces and asking her quite pathetically not to call him stupid, and his stomach almost physically flips when she seems incredulous at the thought.

 He tells her that he _wants_ her to insult him. That’s true. But he tells her to leave Tyrion out of it, because people find him an easy target. Easier than _Jaime_ , anyway, because Jaime just has a tendency to laugh everything off, and it’s hard to land a real blow on a target that slips out of consequences as easily as he does. Tyrion is his weak point, and people know it.

She stops walking. She looks at him as if he has just insulted _her_.

“Why would I say anything bad about Tyrion?”

And, gods, but he is a monster. He has gone after every soft piece of Brienne Tarth that he thought he could see. Prodding for a weak point. Eagerly helping his sister try to strip flesh from this girl’s bones, and she’s looking at him with those guileless blue eyes and asking him in all sincerity what would possibly possess her to go after Tyrion.

“Right,” he says. He cannot hold her gaze, and he looks at his feet. More than ever, he is ashamed of the things he has said to her. “Of course you wouldn’t.”

“I _like_ your brother. I would never…whatever you’ve heard I’ve said, or whatever makes you think I’ve said something, it’s not true.”

“No, I haven’t heard anything,” he finds himself assuring her. “I was just…making sure. I want you to insult me, but I don’t like opening him up to that. People can be cruel.”

She _does_ have a sense of humor. She favors him with a sideways look that makes him laugh aloud. She keeps walking, and he follows.

“People can be cruel,” she mocks under her breath, and he can’t help but laugh again.

“I’m sorry. I should have remembered who I’m talking to. You might have a lot in common, you and Tyrion. Height difference aside.”

She again sighs that sigh. The disappointed one, like she had expected very little of him but is somehow disappointed anyway. He hates the sigh, but he kind of likes it, too. He’s not sure why. Maybe it’s just because she’s fighting back for once, or because she must not _completely_ loathe him if she had any expectations for him at all.

“Is this just a plot to make me let my guard down so you can do something terrible?” she asks. “Because I want this grade too, and I’m not going to let you tank it just so you and your sister can make another attempt to put me down.”

It hadn’t even crossed his mind, actually, but he doesn’t think she would believe that if he told her.

“No,” he says instead. “I shook on it. I meant it.”

“And your word means so much?”

“Well, it’s not _nothing_.” He can see her musing over his words, regarding him with suspicion. Trying to decide exactly how much his word _is_ worth, maybe. She doesn’t tell him to fuck off completely, so he figures they’re in the clear. “When are we going?” he asks.

She stops walking again. She looks at him. There’s this little line between her eyebrows that he likes. Maybe he just likes it because it’s different from her usual blankness. It’s _something_. The reaction to him that he has been craving. Even if it’s just confusion.

“Going where?” she finally asks.

“To the museum. And to talk to your armorer friend.”

“You want to _come_?”

Now _he’s_ confused. And a little bit annoyed, too. She comes up with two awesome, fun-sounding ideas for this project, and then she doesn’t even expect him to go with her?

“Did you not think I would? What was I meant to be doing on this project, then?”

“I don’t know. I figured you could pull a few quotes from whatever they have in the library. Or write up a portion, and I’d add my stuff to it.” He can’t help but feel a little hurt by her dismissiveness. Does she think he’s so stupid that he’s not worth including at all? But no, it’s ridiculous to be hurt by it. Like, now that he’s thinking of it, why _would_ she want him along? He’s never been nice to her. Of _course_ she doesn’t want to hang out with him outside school. He wouldn’t want to hang out with him either. Brienne is _nice_ , though, nicer than he’s ever deserved, so she notices that he’s injured, and adds, “of course you can come, if you want. I just didn’t think you would.” Then, as if she can’t hold it back, or as if he needs to be reminded why she wouldn’t want to spend time with him, she says, “you hate me.”

He’s surprised to hear that. He’s not sure why. Later, he’ll think about it, and he’ll think that it makes sense for Brienne to think that his horribleness towards her is borne of hatred. Is it _worse_ because it’s borne of weakness and indifference? In the moment, it feels worse. If he hated her, at least he would have an excuse.

“I don’t hate you,” he says. He admits, “Cersei hates you. I’m just mean to you. But I can see how you might have gotten that impression.”

She gives him another sort of sideways look that makes him want to laugh. It’s emotion, and reaction, and it’s very much _not_ impressed by him, and he finds himself craving it.

He sticks out his hand, and she eyes it warily.

“Another truce?” she asks.

“A promise.”

She takes his hand in hers. She has big hands for a girl. Strong, too.

“A promise to…?” she asks.

“To never hate you,” he says, very seriously. He sort of bows – this awkward, embarrassing attempt at mimicking a knight from the Age of Heroes that he already hates himself for, and he kisses the back of her hand.

 

* * *

 

When he finally makes it to his lunch table, Cersei looks up at him.

“You’re late,” she says. He nods, and he sits down.

He’s glad she doesn’t ask for any explanation. He’s honestly not sure he’d be able to give one.


	2. What's so Fucking Special About Brienne Tarth, Anyway?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne and Jaime spend the weekend together, and Jaime's already kinda into her. Too bad he's gonna go and fuck it up immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> seriously y'all, I don't want to get your hopes up or anything, and I have anxiety so I need to make my intentions with this story VERY clear, because I will otherwise be kept awake, fearing that I am psychically absorbing all your disappointment: this is just Jaime's POV of "two halves of a soul"!! This isn't a sequel! It's just me wanting to explore Jaime's POV because I left so many things in the background in the original because it needed to be from Brienne's POV!!! Please don't go into this expecting all new storylines and content, because this is not the place for that, and you are in no way obligated to indulge me in my nonsense. 
> 
> I cannot promise there WILL be a sequel, because I don't want to write a sequel just for the sake of having one, and I don't have a storyline in mind for one at the moment (woulda been smart for me to hold off on some GOT storylines instead of jampacking them all into the first one, but I did not do that lmao). I just want to make all of that VERY CLEAR before this train keeps rolling. Just imagine me slowing the train down a little bit so you can jump without dying. If this isn't your jam, jump back on your horse, look cool as shit doing it, and ride away while I stand on my train and wave at you with my conductor's hat or whatever. It's a nice little mental image, and now my anxiety can continue freaking out about the other shit it freaks out about, without worrying about this one thing!

“I just don’t understand why _you_ have to go,” Cersei says. She’s pouty and irritated, sprawled on the couch in the living room. Jaime checks his hair in the mirror by the front door and ignores the sensation of eyes at his back.

“It wouldn’t be fair to let my partner do all the work,” he says.

It’s a strange feeling, lying to his sister. He doesn’t think he’s ever done it before. They’ve always been honest with each other, because they’re siblings, and because they’re _twins_ , and because they’re supposed to share everything. But the idea of telling Cersei that he and Brienne are going to the museum _together_ is difficult to imagine. She would expect certain things from him. She would want him to torment Brienne somehow, or at least report back later, tell her all the embarrassing things that Brienne did or said. He doesn’t want to do that. He wants to enjoy himself today. He wants Brienne to enjoy herself too. He needs the grade, which means he needs Brienne’s help on the paper, and also he shouldn’t need an excuse. He doesn’t _want_ to be an asshole all the time.

As far as Cersei is aware, Jaime is going to the museum on his own. He didn’t mention that he’s excited for it. He didn’t mention that he’s actually nervous for it. He didn’t mention that he hopes Brienne can relax enough in his presence to have a good time and to decide that he’s not a terrible monster, because he doesn’t even know how to explain that to _himself_.

“Since when do you care about _fairness_?” Cersei asks with a wry twist of her lips. Jaime shrugs, and he gives her his most winning smile.

“Since always,” he says, and then he heads for the door.

 

* * *

 

Brienne is quiet when he picks her up, and she’s quiet for most of the ride to the museum. Jaime has this terrible habit of talking too much to make up for the silences of other people. He asks her a million questions about heroic era armor, and even though she doesn’t know the answers and is obviously irritated, he just keeps _going_.

But gradually, as they drive, she begins to open up. Reluctantly, tentatively. She tells him about how she has gone to some heroic fairs, where people dress up and pretend to actually be _from_ the heroic era. He can’t think of anything that Cersei would hate more, but it sounds fun to him, and he grills Brienne more than he needs to about that. He likes the idea of Brienne fighting with a fake sword, wearing fake armor, beating the shit out of other pretenders. It’s the kind of thing he can imagine her excelling in, and it makes him weirdly happy to think about.

He likes the way she smiles when she talks about it, too. It’s so different from the lack of reaction that has always bothered him about her. It’s a small, private smile. Like she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it, and he’s the one who put it there. How could he have ever wanted her reactions to be bad ones? He only wants smiles today.

 

* * *

 

Brienne Tarth is possibly the best person in the world to go to a museum with. She reads the plaques aloud for him without asking _why_ , thus allowing Jaime to avoid having to explain about the dyslexia he tries so hard to hide. She puts up with his antsy interruptions and his lack of attention span for things. She keeps pace with him when he darts from exhibit to exhibit, and she chuckles with him at the weirder pieces, though she tries to hide her amusement. He takes a lot of pictures of the armor on his phone, even though she tells him that she’s already got that covered.

“I’m not taking them for the project,” Jaime says, haughtily. “I’m taking them for _me_ , obviously,” and she gives him another one of those quizzical little looks, like he’s different from what she expected him to be. Really, it’s probably the kindest compliment she could give him.

He stays interested and engaged until modern weaponry, which couldn’t interest him _less_. Who cares about guns? Swords are better. He leaves Brienne puzzling over some sixty-year-old pistol and goes on ahead to the gift shop, where he promptly abuses his father’s credit card and buys a bunch of silly gift shop nonsense that Cersei and Tyrion will surely mock him for.

He spots the replica swords hanging on the back wall. They’re unreasonably expensive, and he bets that they haven’t moved too many of them. There’s one that reminds him a little of his soulmark. It’s a bit gaudier than it, with golden lions carved on the blade, but that’s perfect. He buys two, and he goes to wait outside the gift shop, not wanting to risk Brienne seeing the price tag if she goes in. She doesn’t seem like the type of person who would like so much money being spent on her by anyone, let alone someone who isn’t even her friend.

When he spots her, he pulls one of the swords from his bag, and he tosses it to her.

“How much did this cost?” she asks. He wants to laugh at her for being so predictable, but he doesn’t. He just pulls out his own sword and affects what he thinks is a fighting stance.

She laughs.

She laughs _loudly_.

He’s never heard her laugh like that before unless she’s on the soccer field, with her Starks. Cersei had grimaced and said, _gods, is there anything about her that’s not too big_? _Aside from her chest._ He’d agreed with a chuckle at the time, but the laugh is charming in its way. It’s charming in the way that odd things are always sort of charming to Jaime. Most people are so boring. They don’t offer up anything surprising. Brienne _always_ does, and he wants to make her laugh like that again.

 

* * *

 

They get kicked out of the museum for play-fighting with their replica swords, and he feels a bit bad about it, so he puts on his Lannister Voice and manages to get Brienne two free passes to see the exhibit another time with someone else. He’s never been very good at apologies, but this one seems to work. She smiles and accepts the passes when he hands them to her with a silly bow.

She tucks them into her back pocket and looks at her phone and frowns.

“I’ve just realized,” she says, her tone apologetic. “Goodwin’s shop will be closed by the time we get back in his area. I’ll have to let him know we can’t make the interview.”

Jaime _really_ wants to meet this Goodwin guy, and actually, the idea of spending another day hanging out with Brienne Tarth seems kind of nice. He shrugs, still using his Lannister Voice a bit; unbothered, casual, always on top of things.

“You doing anything tomorrow?” he asks.

 

* * *

 

He mentions the museum that night at dinner, because he has never learned to stop being desperate for Tywin’s approval.

“On a weekend? On your own?” Tywin asks.

“For a paper for school,” Jaime admits. “But it was very interesting. Enlightening.”

“Well,” Tywin says with a long pause. “Perhaps your teacher will reward you for your initiative.”

That sounds a bit like _well done_ to Jaime, so he takes it as a win.

 

* * *

 

Later that night, Cersei knocks on his door. He knows it’s her, because Tyrion has this irritating habit of just walking in, already halfway through his introductory sentence. Jaime normally appreciates the heads-up, but now he’s filled with a sudden anxiety. He bids Cersei to enter, and he takes in the expression on her face.

“I just got an interesting text from one of the girls on the squad,” she says. “She told me that she saw you picking up her neighbor today. Brienne Tarth.”

Jaime feels absurdly _caught_ , like he has betrayed Cersei in some way.

“Yes, I drove us to the museum,” he says. He tries to pretend as if he hadn’t omitted Brienne’s presence on purpose. “No use driving separately.”

“I guess I’m just surprised that you didn’t mention it to me earlier.”

He turns back to his laptop, trying to pretend that he isn’t nervous.

“I don’t see why it matters,” he says. His Lannister Voice again. Bored and smooth and without emotion. Glossy and perfect. He knows she’ll _loathe_ the fact that he’s using it on her, and she does. She closes the door a little too hard on her way out, before he has a chance to tell her that he’s going out tomorrow, too.

 

* * *

 

He leaves early the next morning, before Cersei’s even awake, and he’s at Brienne’s house far before he should be. He thinks it would probably be rude to hang out in his car against the front curb, so he gets out and rings the doorbell like he would if he and Brienne were actually friends. He had stopped for a coffee on the way over and brought one for her, too, and she drinks it even though she makes a face before every sip.

Brienne looks spooked to have him in her home, and she looks warily between he and her father the entire time they talk about Jaime’s football career. Selwyn Tarth is a big, burly man with a jolly smile and an obvious love for his daughter that makes Jaime feel a bit brittle inside. Makes him want to do something stupid and _telling_ like asking Brienne what it’s like to have a father who can stand the sight of her.

He tries to say something to that effect, but what he actually says is “your dad isn’t what I expected”, and it turns into a brief but chilly exchange that makes Brienne go all quiet at the end, because she assumed he’d meant it as a bad way.

He hadn’t! But it’s depressing, and it makes _sense_ that she would think that he was mocking her. That’s the most upsetting thing, he thinks: she has every reason to assume he’s terrible, and not nearly enough of one to think that he’s just trying to be friendly.

 

* * *

 

Goodwin’s armory is as amazing as Jaime expected it to be. He’s a very serious man, but he obviously likes Brienne a lot, because he keeps smiling at her and checking in on her. She has that effect on people. Jaime’s noticed it before, and he thinks it’s probably part of why Cersei hates her so much. People like Cersei and Jaime, they rely on their charms and their good looks to get by. Jaime has mastered it to a certain degree, but no one has Cersei beat. She plays the game of courtesy with a savage anticipation that makes it look more like battle. Too bad their father is such an old-fashioned piece of shit, or he’d realize that the note-perfect heir he’s been looking for has been yearning for his attention as much as Jaime has been trying to avoid it.

Brienne doesn’t have any of those arts. She’s utterly guileless. He doubts she has ever said a cruel thing to anyone. She surely hasn’t said dozens of cruel things to someone in an attempt to make them upset. And people _love_ her for it. Her Starks, her father, this Goodwin guy. Jaime once assumed that Margaery Tyrell and her brother Loras and his boyfriend Renly Baratheon were only humoring Brienne or pitying her, because he didn’t understand what would possess any of them to make friends with her, but they appear to be genuine. Even the teachers like her! All except for Mr. Baelish, likely. Brienne isn’t really his type. Thank the gods for that.

She’s even nice to _him_ , too. He can see something like affection dancing behind her eyes as she films him doing his walkthrough of Goodwin’s shop. She likes him despite herself. He can tell she doesn’t _want_ to. That makes it all the more exciting that she plainly does. She laughs when he’s giddy about a rack of swords. She smiles fondly at him when he plops a helmet on her head. This might be even better than the museum.

He sees her good mood falter when Goodwin leads them over to a large table at the back of the room that has some sort of giant sketchpad on top. She nonsensically hands Jaime her notebook and almost moves to block his sight as Goodwin lifts the cover of the sketchpad.

Jaime isn’t sure why she didn’t want him to see this. It’s _amazing._

Goodwin has drawn Brienne. Brienne as she might look in a couple of years, once she gains some confidence and a little more muscle mass. The woman in the drawing stands tall, an expression on her face that’s almost _daring_. Goodwin hasn’t quite gotten her eyes right, but the man’s not a miracle worker.

It takes Jaime a weirdly long time to notice that she’s in _armor_. It’s nice armor, too, if a little bit gray and boring. It melds to her in an interesting way. It doesn’t look too bulky, or too ridiculously feminine, like the armor in some of the videogames he and Tyrion play together.

“It’s wonderful,” Brienne breathes, and he angles his head a bit so he can see her face from where he stands still a bit obscured behind her shoulder. Her enormous eyes are glassy and ravenous as they take in the drawing.

“It’s not entirely finished yet,” Goodwin says, though he sounds rightfully pleased with Brienne’s reaction. “I’ll need your input on a few design choices. Color tint, ornamentation, any carvings you want. But this is definitely the style for you.”

“Blue,” Jaime says. It should be obvious, shouldn’t it? Both Goodwin and Brienne turn to look at him, and he feels more awkward than he expected he would. He gestures to the drawing. “The tint. I think dark blue would look nice.”

Goodwin smiles at Jaime, and Jaime finds himself fairly beaming with pride.

“You’ve got a good eye,” the armorer says. When Brienne looks at Jaime again, her expression unreadable, he winks at her. She doesn’t meet his eye for a while after that, and he feels a little bad about it. She must think he’s still making fun of her. He isn’t; he hasn’t been all day. But she’s like Tyrion, he remembers. A lifetime of cruel and petty comments will always win out when you put them next to a few cumulative hours in which he has been well behaved.

 

* * *

 

They’re about to start heading out when Goodwin suggests that they might try sparring before they go. Jaime cannot think of a single thing better than that. He looks at Brienne, ready to full-on _plead_ if he has to, and she reluctantly nods. Goodwin shows him how to strap on some armor, and Jaime can’t wait to swing a sword around with her. She might actually be able to _beat_ him. She looks strong enough. Those shoulders he can’t stop noticing now are wide enough.

“We’ve got to film this,” he says. He can just imagine Tyrion’s laughter, watching his big brother get beaten into dust. Brienne agrees, and she sets up her own phone. Jaime takes a few giddy swings in the center of the practice area.

Then they face each other, each holding wooden practice swords. Brienne gets in the zone quickly; she looks like she’s going to actually try to kill him. Jaime’s practically vibrating with nervous energy, ready to let it out.

The fight is a lot more like a dance than he was expecting, and luckily he had dancing lessons when he was younger and his father used to drag them along to company galas. Dancing is quite simple, even when you have a sword in your hand, especially if you’re as athletic and used to running drills as Jaime is. He takes a little while to adjust, because Brienne’s approach is brutish and strong in a way that he isn’t prepared for, but he dances out of her way a few times until he’s able to start striking back.

He lands a few good strikes, and he dodges and blocks enough to put up half a fight, but the truth is that she eviscerates him, and he knows it’s going to happen from nearly the beginning of the match. It’s like playing chess with Tyrion and understanding within a very few moves that Tyrion’s going to win, because you can imagine the moves he’s going to make in the next few rounds and you know that you’re not nearly clever enough to outwit him.

He’s a bit distracted, too, though he’s not going to use that as an excuse. It’s just something he’s noticed. Brienne’s skin is red with effort, and he suddenly decides that her freckles are kind of nice. Almost cute. It’s a surprising thought, brand new and intrusive. But not untrue.

“You’re good at this,” he tells her.

“I know,” she says, and she smirks a little when she says it. He laughs, and he never wants this to stop.

Goodwin is helpful to both of them, even though Jaime knows he wants Brienne to win. He wonders how much Goodwin charges for lessons. He wonders if Brienne would like to train with him.

She finally gets Jaime on his back, and for a split-second he thinks she’s going to straddle him to pin him down, but she only lands with one knee on his chest. He’s an odd, revealing mix of disappointed and glad, because he’s not sure he’d be able to handle her straddling him after the beating he just took. His mind might literally fall to pieces.

“Yield,” she says. He laughs again, jittery.

“Fine,” he says. “You’ve beaten me. I yield.”

She looks down at him for a moment that seems to last a lot longer than it actually does. And something very strange has happened.

Brienne has never been pretty. She’s never even _approached_ it. He’s never looked at her and seen anything that renders his sister’s insults untrue or too far. He might feel bad about saying those things now, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t continue to see them as true even as recently as this morning.

But something has changed. Her shoulders are broad and powerful, and her arms are muscled in a way that he can’t help but admire. Her frame is boxier and squarer than most peoples’, but it’s pleasing suddenly. Even her too-big teeth make _sense_ with the rest of her face. They fit. Smaller teeth, a smaller mouth, none of it would look right. Everything fits together on her face in a way that makes her _Brienne_. And those freckles really _are_ interesting.

And her eyes, obviously. Not even Cersei has ever been able to say anything bad about her eyes. And they’re very _close_ now. And they’re so blue.

Brienne stands up, and now he can’t help but notice her legs. How long they are. How strong they are. She’s stronger than him. She’s _powerful_ , and he’s been running around and trying to diminish that power by making her feel like less of a person for having a body that he now sees is just like any other body. Better than any other body, maybe.

What has _happened_ to him? It’s very confusing. She hasn’t changed. He knows that. And it’s not like he’s been suddenly cursed by some witch to see beauty where there was none. He even still understands empirically that Brienne isn’t someone who many people are going to be attracted to. But he isn’t one of those many people anymore. He _sees_ something. He doesn’t know what it is. He doesn’t know _why_. But it’s there.

 

* * *

 

She’s quiet on the drive back. She’d asked him to drop her off at the Stark house because one of the younger ones has a nameday party, and so they load his trunk up with a bunch of practice swords for the kids and get on the road. He talks a lot, because he always talks a lot, and because now he’s nervous because he’s realized he’s _attracted_ to her. He hopes that she’ll feel comfortable enough to join in now that she’s thoroughly kicked his ass, but she doesn’t say much. Finally, he feels like a direct approach is best.

“How long have you been going to see Goodwin?” he asks.

“A couple of weekends,” she answers.

“Only that long? You’re really very good. You must be a natural. Maybe it’s your shoulders. You’ve got the shoulders for it. That wasn’t…that wasn’t an insult. The truce still holds. It’s just true.”

He glances towards her and sees that she’s staring back at him, unblinking. He thinks she’s going to tell him off, but she doesn’t.

“It does feel natural to me,” she says. “I’ve always liked swords. Heroic age weapons. Knights, and…well, it’s always been important to me. Things were simpler back then, maybe. Things like honor and chivalry mattered. I don’t know.”

He nearly tells her about his soulmark, then. He finds himself reaching for a connection with her. Showing her that they aren’t so different. _I like swords, too_ , he would say, except that would sound terrible. He’d try to make it less lame.

He doesn’t say it, though. He thinks he’s still a little flustered from their fight, and from realizing that there’s something about her face that he likes.

“Who knew you were such a romantic,” is what he settles on. She rolls her eyes at him, but she’s smiling a little.

“Shut up, Lannister,” she says.

 

* * *

 

When they reach the Stark house, Jaime feels his stomach sinking. He’ll have to go home now. He’ll have to face Cersei now. She’s not going to be happy with him. She’s going to ask him about his _date with Brienne Tarth_ , and she’s going to sound so bitterly angry about it. He’s going to pretend that he didn’t enjoy every single second of it, because his default state is to please Cersei, and even now as he’s sitting in his car with Brienne and her mussed-up hair and her beautiful blue eyes, he knows he’s going to push this away to the back of his mind and say whatever he thinks will make Cersei happy.

He doesn’t _want_ to. For the first time, he realizes that he doesn’t _want_ to make Cersei happy about this. Not at the expense of this new, exciting softness inside him.

“Thank you for the ride,” Brienne says. She’s already opening the door to get out. She can’t _wait_ to be rid of him, he thinks. “Can you pop the trunk?”

He remembers the swords in the trunk, and his instincts take over, and he clings to this one stupid thing. _I’ll carry the swords in_ , he thinks. _Then I’ll have a reason to stay._ He pops the trunk, and he gets out of the car.

“Here, let me carry them.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can…”

“Chivalrous. I’m being chivalrous.” He practically runs around back to the trunk and scoops all the swords into his arms. She looks at him as if he is the most baffling person on the planet, and maybe he is. He’d rather impose himself on a nameday party he wasn’t invited to, in the house of a bunch of siblings who don’t have any reason to like him, instead of heading back home to spend time with his twin sister, his best friend. Surely there are therapists somewhere salivating at the thought of being allowed to try and fix whatever he’s got going on.

 

* * *

 

He’s pleased with the rapturous screams that erupt when he enters the backyard with the swords. Arya Stark is a fierce little wolf with a load of fierce little wolfy friends, and she lets out a war cry and hugs Brienne and then very somberly looks Jaime up and down.

“Well,” she says. Brienne starts to help the distractingly pretty Stark mother hand out padding to keep the kids from killing each other, but Arya doesn’t move. “Are you going to stand there being _useless_ , or are you going to show us how to do it?”

Jaime laughs at her, and he obeys, since it’s her nameday party he’s crashing. He’s flattered by how these kids seem to think he’s an expert, though he thinks Brienne should be the one teaching them; she’s better at it. He keeps looking at her, trying to figure out how she feels about him being here. He’s embarrassed he did this, now that he’s had time to move past the instinct to keep this pleasant day going. But Brienne seems happy. Confused, maybe, but she laughs at him when he makes a fool of himself dropping his sword when he tries to do a trick with it, so she can’t be too upset. At least he’s entertaining her.

Robb and Jon and Theon all show up with a bouncy castle, and Jaime gets territorial of the children who have so far been enthralled with the swords he brought, and it turns into a bit of a competition, trying to lure children to their respective activities. Brienne seems torn, but she stays on his side because he knows exactly how best to flatter her by talking up her sword-swinging prowess.

Jaime ends the competition after Arya Stark purposefully thwacks him hard with a sword and he picks her up and catapults her over the wall of the bouncy castle. She shrieks with joy, and soon every kid wants to be thrown. They institute a one-child-at-a-time rule to keep anyone from smashing their heads together, and Robb and Theon join in.

It’s a fun game, except then Jaime throws one of the younger Stark kids. Bran, his name is, and he’s small enough that he goes flying straight out the entrance to the castle on his first bounce, and he twists his ankle when he lands. Catelyn Stark, even prettier now that she’s angry, tells Jaime off for being irresponsible, and maybe he should slink away with his tail between his legs, but he still doesn’t want to leave. So he gathers Bran up on his shoulders, and he carries him around like he’s some kind of bipedal horse, making the boy giggle and making Catelyn Stark smile at him afterward.

And Brienne. She watches him with a grin that she keeps trying to hide. It’s no use, of course; he can see it. It makes her blush, because everything makes her blush. He knows that she’s confused and baffled by the fact that he’s still here – that makes sense, because he’s never expressed to her any of the reasons why he doesn’t want to go home – but she seems to like that he’s still by her side. Every time he calls her name, every time he draws her attention, she smiles, and he wants her to keep on smiling.

 

* * *

 

When it’s starting to get dark, and all the Stark kids and their sort of scary but weirdly hot parents are back in the house cleaning up, Jaime leads Brienne over to the bouncy castle, and they lay down inside it. He remembers doing this with Tyrion, once, years ago. It was at some Frey cousin’s nameday party, he’s pretty sure. Tyrion had vanished after hearing one of the too-numerous children named Walder mock him for being unable to play this game they’d invented that involved hitting each other and falling into water. Jaime had been looking everywhere for him, and finally found him sitting in the bouncy castle, pretending not to sulk.

They’d laid there for a while, just like this, talking. It was the first time Jaime realized that his little brother was cleverer than him and likely always would be. Something about the way that Tyrion spoke made Jaime realize that he’d always been too oblivious to notice things that the world wouldn’t let Tyrion forget.

“This has been fun,” he says aloud to Brienne now. He’s been watching her, her profile as she stares up at the sky. He has decided that he likes the shape of her nose, too. And her lips are as big as ever, but suddenly he’s noticing that they look very soft. He wonders if they feel as soft as they look. She turns to look at him and seems surprised to find him already looking.

“Yeah,” she says. She seems wildly uncomfortable. He wonders if he’s being weird. “Thanks for helping.”

He wants to say a million things. Like how he would love to help her more often, or maybe that it wasn’t _helping_ so much as _actually enjoying a weekend for once_. He wants to ask her if she would let him come to Goodwin’s more often.

“We never had nameday parties growing up,” he says instead. “Well, not after I was like…I don’t know…”

“Eight,” Brienne says. She’s already blushing. “I remember your eighth nameday. You and Cersei invited everyone in our grade. My father thought it was a particular invitation, so he insisted I go, even though I told him I didn’t want to.”

Jaime feels his stomach physically sinking as he pictures it. He doesn’t even remember seeing her there, but he believes her. Gods, he can only imagine.

“Were we awful?” he manages to ask.

“Only a little,” Brienne answers. He wonders if that’s true, or if she’s being kind.

She weaves him a sad little story about the party. He has a feeling she’s downplaying the mortification, because he can envision it so easily. Brienne, awkward and gangly even so young, hovering off to the side while the other kids played in the pool. He remembers that when they were much younger, they were on the same teeball team, and she’d towered over everyone. She wasn’t so shy then, he doesn’t think. He remembers her lifting him up one time when he hit the ball well. Spinning him around at home plate because they both scored off his run. What had changed to make her so unsure? People like him, probably.

He’s glad when she tells him that she found refuge in the kitchen with Aunt Genna. Aunt Genna has always been the nicest of his relatives, and of _course_ she would take pity on the girl. She took pity on him and Cersei, after all.

“She was the reason we even had that party,” he tells Brienne. “My father hasn’t ever been interested, but I remember she said that she thought we deserved something nice.” He laughs a little, because it _is_ kind of funny to think about. “I don’t know where she got _that_ idea. We were little monsters from the start.”

He gives her an opening, but of course she doesn’t take it.

“You were probably less monstrous then,” she says. He remembers laughing as Brienne lifted him and spun him around at home plate. Had they been friends, then, or was she just so excited about the home run? He wishes he could remember.

“Not really,” he says. He looks away from her, up to the sky. Finds himself asking, “why don’t you ever retaliate?”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone else does. Your precious Stark boy has a sharp tongue, and a quick head. After the way his mother cursed me out for dropping Bran, I’m not surprised. Every time I say something to him, I’m guaranteed at least three hilarious put-downs in return.”

“Are you just a masochist? You want people to fight you?”

“No, not really. I just expect it. But you never do. You never even react.”

“I used to react.” Brienne meets his eyes with a pointed look that reminds him of the way she’d torn him down in Selmy’s classroom. “People are cruel,” she says, and he hates himself even more deeply. “I’ve never been much to look at, and it’s not like I even blend in, so I’m an easy target. I used to get angry. I thought if people were afraid of me, they’d leave me alone. But they didn’t. And it didn’t hurt any less. And then I heard someone say “words are wind”, and I decided that if I just _didn’t_ react, they’d stop. I wouldn’t cry or flinch or yell at them. They’d see only blankness, and maybe that would bore them.” Jaime feels that stomach-sinking sensation again, because it hadn’t bored him at all. It had _goaded_ him. It made him want to try harder. “That doesn’t work either, it turns out. The blankness just hides the hurt better, but it feels nicer. Less destructive.”

_I’m a very bad person_ , Jaime thinks. He has thought so before. He has no illusions about himself. But hearing of her pain like this, so plainly spoken, it makes his stomach feel as if it’s doing wild flips. Brienne has been nothing but kind to him, putting up with him with an amount of patience that even Tyrion probably wouldn’t muster, and he’s done _nothing_ to deserve it. Sure, he’s been nice to her for a few days, but that doesn’t erase the rest of it.

“I really am sorry, you know,” he says, after allowing himself a few moments to let his self-hatred simmer inside him.

She stares at him again. She does a lot of that. Staring and evaluating, and sometimes he hates it, but he feels a sort of thrill every time she does it. Her eyes are just so big, and so expressive, and so _seeing_. Does she believe him? He has to wonder.

“Maybe I’ll start insulting you, then,” she says. He’s glad, because she’s keeping her tone light, but part of him craves her true judgement. Maybe he really _is_ a masochist. “Make up for lost time.”

“Maybe you should. Everyone else does.”

“Calling you an asshole when you’re acting like an asshole isn’t an insult. It’s just…”

“Kingslayer,” Jaime says, interrupting her, and she falls silent. His heart physically _hurts_ in his chest as he realizes what he’s said. As he realizes what he has opened himself up to. He doubts Brienne gives much of a shit about the football team’s season back when they were freshmen, but _still_. He’s sure she’s the kind of person who would hear the common story of what he did to Aerys Targaryen and think him half a monster for it.

“I’ve never called you that,” she says. She’s still trying to be light and gentle. “It’s too… _dramatic_.”

“My brother always tells me not to forget who I am, because no one else will forget it either. For a while after the Aerys thing, I was like you said. Angry. I’d fight anyone who said the name. I couldn’t tell them everything, couldn’t tell them why I…but I could defend myself. Tyrion stopped me. So now I just…laugh it off. Kingslayer. All those jokes about me and Cersei. My grades. It’s easier to laugh it off.” He waits, but she doesn’t say anything. Just watches him, still wary. “Aren’t you going to ask?”

“Would you tell me if I did?”

He looks at her. Her honest eyes. Her open expression. He cares what she thinks about him. He thinks she’s a better person than him in every conceivable way, and if she judges him and finds him worthy for what he did three years ago, maybe it’ll bring him some measure of peace to know that at least one more person knows the truth.

“Yes,” he says. “I’d tell you.”

“Do you _want_ to tell me?”

He smiles at her. He cannot help it. No one has ever asked him that before, and of course it’s _her_ , when it happens.

“Yes,” he says. He rolls to his side to face her, and she mirrors the pose.

“Why’d you beat up Aerys, Jaime?”

He likes the way she says his name. He can’t remember if she’s ever said it before. If she has, she hasn’t said it quite like _that_ , like he’s something special.

So he tells her. He tells her about Aerys, the captain of the football team, and about how everyone was afraid of him. He tells her about sweet Rhaella, the asshole’s poor sister, and her friend, Jaime’s first real crush, Elia Martell, whose only mistake was trying to protect her friend. He tells Brienne about how Aerys put Elia in the hospital when she confronted him about his abuse of his sister.

He tones some things down. He doesn’t tell her about the way his chest sank into his toes when he opened the door to the gym and saw Elia lying in a pool of her own blood in the middle of the floor. He doesn’t tell her about the anger that still flits through him at odd moments, to think that there are people out there who still don’t know that Jaime’s eventual beatdown of Aerys was well fucking deserved. But he tells Brienne so much more than he’s ever told anyone, even Tyrion, because she looks at him with those big blue eyes through the whole thing, and it brings him back to the gym that night. Luring Aerys into the locker room. Beating the shit out of him. Calling Rhaella after, letting her know where she could find her brother. The cover-up that followed, with the Martell family helping him avoid any consequences except for the nickname that has dogged him ever since.

He looks at Brienne when he’s finished. He waits for her judgement. It is very important to him, for reasons that he can’t quite articulate right now, that she understand. Maybe because she’s the first person he’s ever told, or maybe it’s because she already has so much reason to hate him. Whatever the reason is for him to need this, he _does_ need it.

Brienne looks at him for a while.

Then, “I wish I’d been there to help you do it,” she says.

 

* * *

 

Later, when he’s at home, he thinks about it. He can’t _stop_ thinking about it. The look in her eyes when she’d said that.

It’s been a day full of revelations, really. Not the least of which is that he likes her. He likes spending time with her, and he likes her face, and he likes her muscles and the fact that she can lay him flat. He thinks she’s too kind to be deserving of the cruelty he has so casually shown her, and he thinks that he wants to make it up to her somehow.

He spends a long time that night typing his notes from their museum visit and the Goodwin stuff, because she asked him to. Cersei wants to watch TV. Tyrion wants to play a game. Jaime turns them both down, and he thinks of Brienne’s blue eyes and the way they’d sparkled when she said that she wished she’d been around to help him with Aerys.

 

* * *

 

The next day, when they’re scheduled to meet at the library, he brings Brienne a soda; he’d noticed that she only drank that coffee he bought her yesterday out of politeness.

She’s on time, because of course she is, and she greets him with a small smile that makes his stomach do silly things. He was a bit curious to see her this morning, like maybe yesterday was a fluke and he would find that she’s as ugly and uninteresting as ever, but she’s still oddly compelling, and he still likes to look at her.

She takes the paper very seriously, but he knows she likes the little jokes he makes. She likes his actual contributions more, though, and never tells him that something is a good idea. If she doesn’t like something he says, she makes a slight face, takes a sip of her soda as if to brace herself, and says, “I don’t know, Jaime…maybe it would be better if…” Tactful and polite and usually correct, and he’s really enjoying himself. He never enjoys himself doing school work!

He rattles off his number, and she writes it down on a crisp piece of paper, so she can send him that video of their sparring session later. They get into the groove of things, with Brienne doing the actual typing and Jaime helping her figure out what to say. It works better than he’s ever worked on a paper on his own, and he wonders if this is what it’s like to be so casually _good at school_ like Brienne is. When it comes time to incorporate his notes, he’s a bit nervous to let her look at them. He’d labored over them the night before, but they don’t seem good enough now.

She doesn’t laugh at them, though, except in the places where he meant for her to laugh, and he’s feeling quite proud. He’s enjoying himself, and she’s enjoying herself, and he doesn’t feel wretched or like an asshole or like a hopeless idiot the way he normally does.

He looks up when he hears the library door open, because he is always _aware_ of his sister, somehow, when she enters a room. He’s tensing up before he’s even seen her, and then he sees her and goes still more tense. She stands there, smiling, looking between he and Brienne as if she’s just thought of something very clever to say. Jaime feels a dread pooling low in his stomach. _Please_ , he wants to say. _Please don’t do this._

“There you are, Jaime,” Cersei says.

Jaime feels his body physically react to her expression. It’s disappointed, confused, sly and cruel and still smiling only because she would never lose face. She’s _angry_ with him, but it’s more than that. She’s looking at him like their father does sometimes. Like he’s so unfathomably stupid and she can’t believe she’s related to him. He tries to look as casual as possible, though the sickness of it sinks into his stomach. _Idiot. You’re such an idiot. How could you think you would get away with this_?

“I told you I was working on Selmy’s paper,” he says.

“With Brienne,” Cersei fires back immediately. She looks over at Brienne. Jaime is too afraid to. Brienne has gone very still beside him, like a prey reaction to an encroaching lion. “How fun.”

“It’s a paper,” Jaime says, like it’s all just terribly boring and necessary. _I’m not enjoying myself, Cersei! I promise! You don’t have to do this!_

“I hope my brother is treating you well, Brienne. I know how boorish he can be.” She’s not even looking at him. She’s still staring at Brienne, and Jaime feels this odd detachment from the situation, suddenly. It just doesn’t make _sense_. He can’t figure out what it is that Cersei is so upset about. “He takes so much pride in saying things as he sees them, and he has such a dim view of the world. Oh, I see you’re blushing. You _do_ do that a lot, don’t you, Brienne? And it’s such a pretty, ladylike blush. Isn’t it, Jaime?”

She still doesn’t bother to look at him. She’s still rigidly angry, every line of her body tense as she tilts her head towards him with her eyes still locked on Brienne’s. It’s a prompt. A call for action. She can’t even bother to look at him when she does it. It’s a fucking _power move,_ against Brienne Tarth of all people, and he feels sick.

He feels sick, but he still feels detached, and he knows that he’s going to say it. It doesn’t feel real. He’ll say what he has to say, and Cersei will leave, and Brienne will understand.

He looks at Brienne, and Brienne looks back at him. The same way she always has: hearing Cersei’s insult and then turning to him to wait for _his_ judgement, next. He can feel himself hesitating. He remembers how glorious she’d looked, standing above him after knocking him on his ass. He’d never felt like that before.

“Ladylike?” he says. “Gods, no.” With a laugh. With a sneer. With exactly the same tone he’s always used.

Brienne stares at him for a moment that might last a whole minute. Her big eyes are damning. They don’t well with tears. They don’t turn red. Even her blush goes away, leaving her face pale but for those freckles that still look very cute. What was it she said? The blankness just hides the hurt better?

“Right,” she says. There is a world of resignation in that syllable. Jaime wants to reach out to her. _No, don’t you see? Cersei will leave now. She’s got what she wanted, and now we can…_

But he knows already that he has miscalculated. Of course he has. How could he be so stupid? It doesn’t matter that he only said those things for Cersei. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t believe them. He _said_ them, and he chose Cersei’s fleeting happiness over Brienne’s feelings, and he’s an asshole. He’s the monster she was worried all weekend he was going to turn out to be. He proved her right.

Brienne turns back to her laptop, and she very methodically goes about packing up her things. She moves with a steadiness that’s impossible to look away from. He has no idea how she’s going to react. Cersei’s watching her with a growing smile. She seems impressed by Brienne’s calm, but she doesn’t _know_ , the way Jaime now does. She doesn’t know how hurt Brienne is.

Brienne writes down her email address, and she puts the paper down on top of his notes. The notes he’d worked on for so long. The notes that had just been making her laugh because he had written _“and then Brienne kicked the absolute shit out of Jaime, and he had the time of his life (you have to leave this sentence in the paper, Brienne. It’s the law)”._

She puts her hands flat on the desk as she moves to stand, and Jaime feels pathetic as he lurches forward in his seat to put his hand on top of hers.

“Brienne-” he starts to say, but he has no idea what’s going to follow it, and she doesn’t give him the chance to figure it out. She yanks her hand back. She doesn’t look at him.

“I should go,” she says. She looks at Cersei and then back down at her things. She still won’t look at him, and he feels absolutely wrecked with the _need_ for her to look at him and see the apology in his eyes. “We don’t need to write the paper together, anyway. Just turn your notes into a few paragraphs about the later heroic years, and I’ll incorporate them into the rest. I’ll get the middle portion done.”

“Brienne, I-,” he tries again.

“Oh, Jaime, let the great cow go,” Cersei sighs. She stands up. “Come on. Grab your things.”

Of course this is what it was about. She was bored, and she wanted his attention, and so she came here to get it at the expense of Brienne’s comfort, because Brienne is nothing to her. Less than nothing. Brienne was in the way of Cersei’s momentary happiness, and so she did _this_. He should say something, he thinks. Tell Cersei off. But what good would that even do? He is the monster in this story, and he knows it.

Brienne packs up her things. She picks up the piece of paper that she had written his number on. Without looking at him, and without any kind of vengeful relish, she carefully rips the paper in two. Dismissing the thought of him in her life as easily as she had won their battle yesterday. Jaime shrinks back in his seat. He has never felt so small.

She leaves the library, then, and he watches her drop those pieces of his number in the recycling bin on her way out. She doesn’t look back once.

Cersei watches him. She waits. The triumph that was in her eyes is gone.

“It’s for your own good,” she says.

The spell isn’t broken. Her spell over him will _never_ be broken, he doesn’t think. Not completely. Those bonds you form in childhood with your twin sister are strong enough to withstand anything. But it’s twisted, strained, and it gives him the strength to stand up.

“You’re pathetic,” he says.

She slaps him. _Hard_. She has never slapped him before. Of _course_ she hasn’t; she was there when they were kids. She knows what it means.

They stare at each other over the library table, and he’s not sure who looks more surprised, or who feels more horrified. Cersei pulls her hand to her chest, fingers curling into a shaking fist, as if she can take it back. Delete it like an unsent text.

“ _I’m_ pathetic?” she finally asks. Her voice wavers. “I didn’t make you say it.”

“No,” he admits. “You didn’t.”

They stare at each other. His cheek throbs. His stomach _hurts_. What has he done?

“What’s so fucking special about Brienne Tarth, anyway?” she asks. He can hear the panic rising in her voice, the way it always does when she’s overwhelmed and doesn’t have total control over a situation. She’s spiraling, clinging to what power she can, and Jaime realizes that he doesn’t have to help her. He doesn’t _have_ to make her feel better. Right now, he doesn’t even want to.

“Well, she doesn’t act like a spoiled child afraid to share her toys, for one thing,” he says. Cersei glares at him. “Go ahead. Hit me again. Maybe if you do it often enough, father will finally realize how alike you are.”

She flinches at that, and he hates himself for being glad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in every universe I create where Jaime Lannister and Catelyn Tully Stark exist in the same space, Jaime Lannister will lowkey be super into Catelyn Tully Stark, and that is a PROMISE.


	3. It Brings out the Blue of your Eyes. Bro.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime angsts, ft. a salty Tyrion, a very sweet Elia, and a reluctantly repentant Cersei.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a promise (aka a throwaway comment) to try and work Elia in if I could, and I needed a good conversation for Jaime in this chapter so here I am, earning that 20 bucks you slid across the table to me.

As the siblings are driving home that afternoon, Tyrion tries to engage the twins in conversation the way he always does: antagonizing Cersei while Jaime does his best to keep the mood light so he can pretend that his family isn’t quite so damaged. But Cersei is sullenly silent, and she refuses to take any of Tyrion’s bait, and Tyrion is baffled and snappish in response, and Jaime doesn’t say a word to either of them.

He keeps remembering the way Brienne had looked at him. The way she’d said _right_ in that voice of hers. Flat and emotionless and only obviously hurt because now he _knows_ she’s hurt by things like that. The way she’d ripped that piece of paper with his phone number on it. It had such a sense of finality. Moving on. Dismissal. It’s exactly what he deserves, but it still _hurts_. He’d called Cersei pathetic, but he knows that he’s the pathetic one.

He remembers how it felt yesterday, when Brienne had looked at him in the bouncy castle after he told her about the Aerys thing. Like she was seeing him for the first time and judging him as worthy. This was the opposite of that. This was Brienne realizing that she had been wrong, and that he wasn’t worthy at all.

Tyrion bursts into Jaime’s room when they get home, not bothering to knock.

“Are you going to tell me what happened, or am I going to have to ask the ice queen?”

“You know she wouldn’t tell you,” Jaime mutters. He’s flat on his back on his bed, feeling dramatic and sad and self-loathing, and the last thing he wants is for his little brother to see him like this.

“No, but it might be fun to piss her off as much as possible.”

“I wouldn’t,” Jaime deadpans, thinking of the slap.

Tyrion climbs up onto Jaime’s bed and pokes him savagely in the stomach. Jaime glares.

“Tell me,” Tyrion says.

“I’m an asshole.”

“Yes, you have quite convinced yourself of that, I know.”

“No, I mean I’m a _real_ asshole.”

“Is all this wallowing just because you’ve upset Cersei somehow? Because I know you’re for some reason convinced that your entire personality is tied to hers, but this is a little sad even for you.”

“It’s not about Cersei,” Jaime says. Tyrion smiles at him, looking surprised and pleased and hopeful. Not for the first time, Jaime wonders what it says about him that he can remain so close to his sister when she continues to be horrible to his beloved little brother.

“Who else could it possibly be about?” Tyrion asks. “Could it have anything to do with a certain history partner who inspired you to type up all those notes last night?” Jaime’s weak glare is the only answer. Tyrion sighs, and he actually looks pitying. “What happened?”

“Cersei happened.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t about Cersei.”

“I’m not _upset_ because Cersei is mad at me,” Jaime explains patiently. He loves his brother, and he is convinced that his brother is a genuine genius, but he’s also a shit-eating, annoying dick sometimes.

“So you’re upset because Brienne is mad at you.”

It’s surprising to hear Tyrion say Brienne’s name like that, like they’re friends, until Jaime remembers. Tyrion _does_ know Brienne. He probably even likes her. There was a time last year when, for some odd, complicated reason Jaime hasn’t quite figured out, Tyrion had to pretend to date Sansa Stark for a while. Jaime was the only one who had known from the beginning that it was fake, because Tyrion finds it difficult to lie to him. They’d been very funny about it. Tyrion had brought her to a few family dinners, and Sansa had cooed over him and kissed him on the cheek, utterly baffling both Cersei and Tywin, who were so used to underrating Tyrion.  

“You know her, right?” Jaime says. “Brienne. She’s…nice.”

“Brienne Tarth might be the nicest person in the whole of this school,” Tyrion says. “My beloved ex aside.”

“I hurt her feelings, I think,” Jaime admits. Tyrion laughs loudly at him.

“I’m sorry. I’ve apparently been paying less attention to you and our sweet sister than I thought. I thought the _goal_ was to hurt that poor girl’s feelings. Why else are you always saying terrible things to her?”

And there, in Tyrion’s tone, is the little note of disgust that he so seldom allows. The moments when Tyrion acknowledges that his brother has become someone who punches down at the vulnerable instead of punching up at the people who would hurt them. When Jaime was young, he was always playing at being a knight or a bodyguard or some other person who rescues other people. He never imagined himself growing up to be a bully, and Tyrion probably never imagined it, either. It probably hurts Tyrion to think about almost as much as it hurts Jaime.

“I had fun with her this weekend,” Jaime says. “And then I ruined it.”

“Because of Cersei?” Tyrion asks.

“Because of Cersei. For Cersei. With Cersei. What else is new?”

“Nothing,” Tyrion admits. He looks vaguely disappointed in Jaime, and Jaime again feels the sting of knowing that Tyrion has expected _more_ of him, and also of knowing that Tyrion shouldn’t have expected anything at all. “What did you do?” When Jaime stays stubbornly silent, Tyrion sighs again. “Well, what are you going to do to fix it?”

“I don’t know if there’s anything I _can_ do to fix it.”

“Unless you did something _truly_ terrible…”

“Depends on your definition of terrible.”

“I mean something unforgivable. But you’re here wallowing instead of turning yourself into the police, so I…”

“The _police_?”

“So it’s not truly terrible, then. Just mean.”

Jaime sighs again, deflated to hear his actions boiled down to that. A simple word, _mean_. It speaks to smallness, pettiness. It’s the perfect word for what he’s done, and he hates it.

“I feel wretched.”

“Jaime, you know I love you. You’re the best sibling I could ask for, though admittedly you have no real competition to speak of. But you are an utter _idiot_ sometimes.”

“I know.”

“No. Would you _listen_ to me?”

“I _am_ ,” Jaime insists, but Tyrion shakes his head and prods him in the stomach again. Jaime sits up, glaring. “What?”

“Are you a coward?”

“What?”

“A _coward_. Are you a coward? Because you’re lying here thinking everything is hopeless. You made a mistake. You did a mean thing. I know you take everything very seriously. I know everything hurts you more deeply than it does a normal person.”

“That’s not…”

“Don’t be _boring_ , Jaime. Don’t be father. It’s not a terrible thing to admit that you’re sensitive. You forget how well I know you.”

Jaime simmers in silence, because he knows Tyrion is right, and because Tyrion knows he will do anything to avoid being compared to their father.

“Fine,” he says.

“Then listen to me: I know that you’re used to people writing you off or worshipping you, with nothing in between. And Brienne Tarth has apparently struck somewhere in the middle, and you have no idea how to deal with that. You’ve upset her, or hurt her in some way, and so now you’ve decided that you have to give up on her completely. Whether for your own good or because you think it’s better for _her_ , I’m not sure. But I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit, and you’re not giving her enough credit, either. _Talk_ to her. Apologize to her. _Try_. Don’t just give up without giving it a shot. You owe it to her almost as much as you owe it to yourself. To write yourself off as useless when you’ve done a bad thing without trying to make up for it, that’s cowardly behavior, and you aren’t a coward.”

 

* * *

 

Dinner that night is uncomfortable, with Jaime staying steadfastly silent, and Tyrion engaging their father in conversation, baiting Cersei even more because he’s enjoying this fight way too much. Tywin notices something, but he doesn’t care enough to ask, and Cersei alternates between glaring at Jaime and looking pleadingly at Jaime, and Jaime does his best to not even look at her, because he wants to continue to be angry for a little while longer, at least.

When dinner’s over, he expects her to follow him to his room, or knock on his door and demand to talk, but she doesn’t. She’s biding her time, waiting for him to get less angry. She knows he will, because he’s weak, because he always forgives her after he’s had time to calm down. He’s almost angrier when he realizes that she’s waiting him out, because she knows how to play him.

He’s glad, though, that he’s left alone to work. Tyrion had asked him if he wanted help, and Jaime knows that he probably should have taken it, because he’s never been very good at this. Writing papers, coming up with things to say. With Brienne, it was different. They bounced ideas off each other. They bounced words off each other. She liked some of the things he said, enough to give him confidence. Without her, it’s just writing, and it’s as boring and difficult as ever, but it’s his fault. He knows it’s his fault, so he just has to suck it up and keep working.

He owes it to her.

He writes for as long as he dares; he doesn’t want _her_ to be up all night working on this after he sends her his part. He hesitates over the email. He tries to think of something to say that will explain everything. Or make it better somehow. He _can’t_. He knows he has no hope of explaining it in writing. He barely has a hope of it aloud! Instead, he just writes _I’m sorry_ in the body of the email, and he hopes that she gives him a chance to explain it tomorrow.

He leaves his notification sound on, even though he usually sleeps with it on mute. He isn’t surprised when she doesn’t respond.

 

* * *

 

The next day, he gets to Selmy’s class a little early, but Brienne has beaten him there. She’s in the back, like always, and she’s got work for some other class spread out on her desk around her. He sees that she has left his copy of the paper on his desk. He wonders if he should just sit down and read it. Wait until after class to try and talk to her. She looks busy, and he doesn’t want to bother her.

But Tyrion was right when he said that Jaime is used to people writing him off or worshipping him. He isn’t used to feeling guilty for his meanness, and he isn’t used to trying to make things up to people. He’s bad at apologies and bad at expressing his many feelings after years of pushing them aside or laughing them off, and he knows that he should maybe ask Tyrion for advice, or Aunt Genna, or Elia, or _someone_ , but he’s also bad at impulse control, so he sits down in the seat in front of hers. He’ll explain, and he’ll promise to be better, and she’ll…well, he doesn’t know, yet. But he wants to try.

She doesn’t look up. He wonders if it’s on purpose or if she just doesn’t realize he’s there. He already knows this was a mistake. It’s the chess thing with Tyrion again. Seeing the end coming from a long way off.

“Brienne,” he says to get her attention. When she looks up at him, she’s blank still. Her expression is cool and calm. She looks as if she has never met him before, as if she has never smiled at him or been tormented by him at all. Like he has started again at zero, at a blank slate, but he knows that isn’t true. He’s in the negative, worse off than he started. He tries to smile at her, but she is unmoved. He wishes he had thought of something to say on the way over here.

“I left your copy on your desk,” she says. Her voice is as cool as her expression, and he feels his smile wavering as his brain scrambles for _anything_ to say. She is not just hurt. She is _angry_. She continues, her voice still cool and calm as ever, “you didn’t give me much to work with, but I cleaned it up and made it legible, at least.”

How does she _do_ that? He knows she doesn’t mean to. He knows that she has no idea how badly those words will hurt, or how deeply they will cut into the heart of his most brutal insecurities. She’s only being honest and calling him out because she probably thinks he half-assed his part of the paper, but she’s accidentally saying things to him that he hears in his own head all the time. He worked for _hours_ on that part of the paper, and it wasn’t good enough. It was horrible, and awful, and he made _more_ work for her, and he can’t even apologize properly. He has to look away from her eyes, because they’re still staring at him, still cutting into him. He feels very small again, like in the library, like if she stood up right now she’d been ten feet taller than him instead of just an inch.

“Look, I just wanted to say…” he starts, but she cuts him off again. She does not want him to speak, he realizes.

“It’ll be an A,” she says. She is so unmoved. She is stronger than him in every way, isn’t she? “The paper. It’s good. Selmy will really like the pictures, and I already emailed him the videos. It’ll be an A. You don’t need to worry.”

_She doesn’t want your apologies. She wants you to stop talking to her. You blew your chance. Tyrion was wrong, and you were right. You fucked up, and this is the end of it. Deal with the consequences._

“I really am sorry, you know,” he tries again, ignoring that stubborn, self-loathing voice in his head that wants him to despair. She looks back to her work like this conversation is just a distraction. It probably is.

“Yes, you said that before,” she says. He can’t remember when. She looks up and meets his eyes. “I didn’t believe you then, either.”

This time, she means it to hurt. He can tell. She means to drive him away like an unwanted pest, like a stray dog trying to follow her home. His stomach hurts again, this low pain in his chest, like she has punched him, or hit him with the flat of a wooden blade. He’s so angry with himself, and so hurt, and he doesn’t know what to do.

At least he can give her what she wants: he gets up, and he goes back to his seat.

 

* * *

 

He avoids her, after that. She’s easy to avoid, because she’s easy to spot. He stops going with Cersei to her soccer games. That’s easy, because they were only going to be assholes, anyway. He starts getting to class early so he can sit down at his desk and pretend to be looking at his phone when she walks by. He avoids her eye at lunch, and in the hallway, and everywhere. He always catches glimpses of her as she walks with Robb or Sansa or Margaery. Surrounded at all times by people who love her. She smiles at them. Her blue eyes light up at the sight of them. He just gets to _watch_ , but only out of the corner of his eye.

He lasts only a few days before he starts speaking to Cersei again, but it’s strained, and she never mentions Brienne Tarth, because she knows better than to do it. She buys him coffees in the morning, just how he likes them. She buys him a new hoodie when she’s out shopping, and she tries to pretend like it’s just something she _saw_ , but he knows it’s an apology for hitting him. When they watch a movie that weekend, when Tywin is working late and Tyrion is out with one of his girlfriends, she puts a pillow in her lap and has Jaime lay his head in it so she can play with his hair, the way she knows he likes but will never ask for. Cersei does not _say_ that she’s sorry. Not if she can help it. But she shows it. He wishes she would show apology by _changing_ the way she treats people sometimes, but he supposes this is good enough. She and Tyrion are the only friends he really has. He can’t afford to be picky.

Elia reaches out online, the way she does every few months. She never talks about Aerys. She talks about college and asks him what he’s up to. He’s not sure why, but he actually _tells_ her. And a few hours after he sends the message, his phone lights up with a call.

It’s funny, how your first crush can stick with you. He hasn’t even seen Elia Martell in years, but just the sight of her contact picture on his phone makes his stomach unclench a little from the knot of anxiety that it has been twisted into since that moment in the library.

“It isn’t an _emergency_ ,” he says, aghast, when he picks up, and Elia laughs. Even her _laugh_ reminds him. He had been a freshman when she was a senior, and he remembers how grown up she had seemed to him. And he remembers how his heart had fluttered whenever she was kind to him.

“It sounds like one. I remember this girl.”

“You _do_?”

“Yes. My little brother Oberyn tried to recruit her for track. Even as a freshman, she had the longest legs he had ever seen. She claimed she was too clumsy to run well. Oberyn was very put out. Probably she was just too shy. Oberyn can be a bit much.”

“Probably,” Jaime admits. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

“I remember _everything_ ,” Elia says with a pleasant little sigh. “It’s the curse of having a forgetful older brother and a very clever younger one, I’m afraid. So. This girl. You like her?”

“I don’t know. Kind of. Please don’t make me talk about this.”

She laughs. Kind, gentle. Very Elia.

“No one can _make_ you talk about your feelings, Jaime. Just as no one can make you say or do anything you don’t want to. I know it’s easier when you can blame your actions on another person, but it’s less honest. And the boy I knew would want to be honest. He would want this girl to like him, but only as himself. And that would mean accepting responsibility. I think your Brienne would like that. Just…give her a little time, all right? And try apologizing from the heart. And thank her for her help on the project. You can be charming when you want to be.”

“I don’t know if she’d like _charming_.”

“You can also be very honest when you want to be. And very sweet. And very earnest. Just…be kind to her, Jaime. I think you’re used to a certain level of cynicism and sarcasm, especially after what happened. I would hate to see you hurt someone unwittingly who didn’t have the same experience. And you need to understand that you don’t always have to follow your sister’s will. I know she has said unkind things about your Brienne, but _you_ are the first line of defense. Talk to Cersei. She’s not a bad person. She’s just…she’s afraid.”

Jaime thinks that’s simplifying things a bit, but he also knows that Elia is right. So much of Cersei’s personality _has_ been rooted in fear. A need for control isn’t born from nothing. He understands that. But just as he has made the choice to be cruel to ensure Cersei’s happiness, Cersei has made the choice to be cruel to protect herself. They have both made their choices. Over and over again, they have made them. Elia is right, though: _he_ can choose differently.

“Thank you, Elia,” he says.

“You’re welcome. Your father is always saying that Lannisters pay their debts. Well, the Martells remember their friends. You will always be a friend to me, Jaime, and I hope I can help in some small way.”

Jaime finds himself smiling at nothing. Elia Martell. It was always meant to be an unobtainable crush; she was older than him, and she was far too sweet. But every time he talks to her, he remembers how he felt about her, and how angry he had felt to see her hurt, and how sweet it felt to make Aerys bleed for what he had done.

What happened to that boy? That boy wanted so badly to protect Elia. That boy risked _everything_ to take some measure of vengeance for her. How did he become someone who would sacrifice every ideal he once had just to indulge Cersei’s whims? That boy went away, and it has made both he and his sister worse for it.

Elia’s conversation has helped him to see. The answer isn’t to blame everything on Cersei, and it isn’t to completely avoid Cersei or to try and change her overnight. The answer is to allow himself to be that boy again. Let Cersei be who she is. Love her anyway. But he can be strong enough to only do and say the things he _wants_ to do and say without turning it into an indictment against his sister. He just has to be strong enough.

It isn’t all about Brienne, but it _is_ about Brienne. Or Brienne is the trigger of it, anyway. So Brienne is the first step. She’s the one he owes it to the most.

 

* * *

 

It’s not even a slight surprise to see the red-inked 100 on the top of the page when Mr. Selmy hands Jaime his report back. He’s written a lot of very nice things in the margins, too, including a few things like “ha!” after jokes that were definitely Jaime’s. Jaime wonders if Selmy could tell, or if he wrote the same thing on Brienne’s paper. Probably he knew; Brienne’s paper is likely filled with praise of all the really insightful art analysis she did. Or the writing. Or the idea itself.

Seeing the paper in front of him, remembering how happy he was during the weekend that _preceded_ the paper, it’s giving him the courage that he has been waiting for. The worst thing that can happen is that she turns him down. She won’t even be _mean_ about it, so it’s not nearly as bad as probably all of Brienne’s own “worst case scenarios” for interacting with _him_.

He tries to look as inoffensive as possible. He lingers by the door, waiting in full view, and he meets her eyes when she raises them in his direction. He doesn’t want her to be uncomfortable. He wants her to know that he’s waiting for her, and that he wants to talk to her, and that she can just glare at him or refuse to move from her desk and he’ll take a fucking hint.

She doesn’t do that, though. Of course she doesn’t. She’s _nice_ , and it’s been long enough that maybe she can talk to him without wanting to run in the other direction.

She approaches cautiously, and he watches her, and he can’t stop _fidgeting_. When she’s close, she stands taller than him. Straight and proud while his shoulders are hunched the way they always get when he’s embarrassed. He forces himself to stand taller.

“I told you we’d get an A,” she says. She sounds blank, but it’s not cold like it was the last time they spoke, and Jaime supposes that’s more of an improvement than he deserves.

“You did,” he replies. “And I wanted to try apologizing again. Better this time.”

She doesn’t rise to it or say _good, jackass, I deserve an apology._ She appears to wave it off.

“For doubting I’d get us an A?” she asks. She can’t even let _her own insult_ stand, and she sighs and says, “that _we_ would get an A.”

“You know what I need to apologize for.”

She doesn’t seem to want it; she starts walking. He follows her.

“You don’t need to apologize for anything,” she says.

“Of course I do. I need to apologize for a lot, actually, but the library…I don’t know why I even said it. I don’t know why I say half of what I say. I know it’s, it’s cruel, and you don’t deserve…”

“Jaime, enough,” Brienne says. Her sigh this time is clipped, forced out. She’s getting angry. She doesn’t look at him. “It’s not a big deal.”

Which is just so _Brienne_ , and he can say that even not knowing her very well at all, because he knows exactly who she is in this. It’s why she never tried to tell Sansa all those times Cersei and Jaime were making fun of her and pretending at kindness. It’s why she never fights back. She has a level of resignation where she has learned not to expect things from the people around her, and he wishes that he could take back every cruel thing he has ever said and erase it entirely from her memory.

“It is, though. I know I hurt you. I know I’ve _been_ hurting you. I know I shouldn’t have…Cersei says things, and I just blindly follow her, and it’s wrong. I shouldn’t do that.”

“Shouldn’t, but you do, and you’ll do it again.” Brienne finally looks at him, and he sees sadness in her expression. Sadness and patience and pity, and those are all things that might upset him from someone else, but it doesn’t bother him when it’s from her. “Look, I had a nice time at the museum. And with Goodwin. And at Arya’s party. It was a fun weekend. But that’s all it was. It’s over.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Jaime says. Brienne shakes her head, and she keeps walking, and she says his name with a drawn-out sigh as she goes. Jaime hurries to keep up. Like, this is a _crisis_ he’s having, but he keeps thinking _gods, she’s fast on those long legs_ and he’s feeling small again, but not in any terrible way. It’s in a way where he wants to make her like him and will do anything, he thinks, to show her that he’s sorry. “You can’t tell me you don’t want me to come back to Goodwin’s with you. He said I came closest to beating you out of anyone! Imagine how good we’d be if we were fighting together. If we were friends…”

“ _Friends_?” Brienne is practically loud when she interrupts him. “If we were _friends_ , your sister could boil me alive, and you’d still stand by happily and watch.”

“No, not anymore. I refuse to be her, her _prop_ anymore. Especially not with you.”

“Jaime, _why_ is this even…?”

“What can I do to make you believe me?”

Brienne laughs a little, and she finally stops walking. She meets his eyes, and he doesn’t look away. He lets her see whatever she needs to see.

“Jaime, what _is_ this? Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

He hesitates, then. Is that what she wants? Is that what she _really_ wants from him? No apology, no proof that he’s not going to be the same jerk he was, but just…nothing? Complete avoidance? He thinks of what Tyrion said, and of what Elia said, but he wonders. Tyrion and Elia both care about him, but Brienne Tarth probably _would_ be happier if he just disappeared off the face of the planet. If he was really interested in making things easier for her, he should do that.

“I don’t know,” he admits quietly. “But you didn’t deserve that. I was an asshole. And I have _been_ an asshole. I don’t want to be an asshole anymore.”

“It’s really simple not to be an asshole,” Brienne says. She’s being kind again, he knows. Her smile is forced. “I do it most days.”

“I have trouble believing you’ve ever been an asshole in your life.”

“I can be,” she warns him, like it’s a promise she’ll follow through on if he fucks up in the future, and he smiles, because that’s what he has been looking for. She might think he’s a total disaster, but she doesn’t think he deserves to be written off completely.

“I’ll prove it to you,” he says.

“Jaime…”

“I’ll prove it to you,” he repeats. He’s starting to feel a bit giddy at the possibilities. What can he do to prove it to her? He doesn’t know, yet, but he’ll figure it out. He points back at her as he starts to back away down the hall. She looks after him with confused exasperation, but there’s just a hint of a smile curling at one corner of her lips.

“I don’t know what that means!” she yells after him.

“You will!” he shouts back, and he finally turns around to keep walking down the hallway, grinning to himself.

 

* * *

 

It gets fun after that.

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t take very much to convince Cersei and her friends to keep going to the soccer games, but this time with the intention of supporting the team. Cersei is livid the first time he cheers Brienne when she blocks an attack, but that doesn’t stop him from cheering her again later in the game.

“What was the point of that?” she asks, later, standing in the door to his room. He feels the same defensive tension in his shoulders, that knee-jerk response to her disappointment that he has always tried to avoid. But it’s easier to ignore, now. He knows he has to ignore it to save himself.

“I’m not going to help you with Brienne Tarth anymore,” he says. “I’m actually going to ask you to leave her alone, though I know you’re not going to listen.”

“Jaime,” Cersei says, and he realizes he has hurt her. He sighs. He has to be more delicate than this.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “But you know how you can be. You hurt people because they’ve done something to upset you, but you’re like a very tenacious bear when you get a grudge. That’s not always a bad thing. But Brienne hasn’t done anything to you, and you seem bent on upsetting her as often as possible. I don’t like hurting people for no reason. I never have, but I’ve gone along with it, because I like making you happy more. But I’m not doing it anymore. I’m sorry.”

She stares at him. He can tell that she doesn’t quite know what to say. He thinks it’s probably unfair that he has laid all of this suddenly at her feet. Calling her out as if blaming her for all of it.

“You didn’t make me say anything,” he reminds her. She doesn’t go tense at the reference to the incident in the library, but there’s a wariness suddenly in her green eyes. “I said it myself. And I want to stop being like that.”

She doesn’t say anything else, but the next day she goes to the soccer game with him. She doesn’t _cheer_ , exactly. She spends most of the time admiring the way Robb Stark’s curls bounce around when he runs, Jaime’s pretty sure. But she doesn’t say anything terrible, either.

 

* * *

 

In class, he tries to talk to Brienne. Not enough to irritate her, he hopes. But just polite things. Fun things. Friendly things. He compliments a short story she wrote in literature class. He sends an eyeroll her way when Mr. Mormont goes on another one of his rants about the family structure of the Dothraki. She laughs and puts her head down on her desk, and Jaime grins to himself for the rest of the class. He thinks of using her email address at least twice a day to send her something. He thinks of asking for her number for the same reason. But he doesn’t ask, because he’s kind of a coward, and because he wants to wait until he’s sure that she actually likes him.

The thing that makes her laugh the most is when he passes her in the hallway and calls her a new term for _friend_. He uses a thesaurus to find a list of words, but most of them aren’t right and some are downright creepy – companion, roommate, consort, intimate, soulmate – but he manages to find enough to keep her on her toes. She usually just laughs as she walks by, or makes a face, or rolls her eyes. When he butchers a sentence in High Valyrian, she makes him _explain himself_ in the hallway, and it’s the most direct conversation they’ve had since he said he would _prove it to her_ , and he’s so startled and unprepared that he finds himself blushing in the bathroom mirror a full several minutes later.

_Bro_ is the one that sticks, though, because the look she gives him when he first says it is so incredulous and expressive and hilarious. It’s half a smile, half a laugh, and it’s _all_ confusion.

“Did you finish Selmy’s homework yet, bro?” he’ll ask when he sees her in the hallway, and she’ll laugh or put her face in her hands, or shake her head at him, and he’s not sure exactly what she thinks of him yet, but he knows that she doesn’t hate him. Her eyes light up when she sees him coming, just like they do for her real friends.

 

* * *

 

Cersei only tries one more time to get him to relent. He knows she’s doing it to test the waters. He even understands it; he has never been so firm against her before. Of course she’s going to think that he can be moved.

“What an interesting sweater choice,” Cersei says. Jaime is looking down at his phone, but he can tell just from the tension in Cersei’s tone that she’s talking to Brienne. “It’s so… _you_. What do you think, Jaime?”

Jaime looks at Cersei, and then he looks at Brienne. He thinks the sweater is too big, and it falls slightly off one shoulder, giving him a glimpse of her pale, freckled skin here. These past few weeks, he’s been so focused on trying to be better and trying to make her _like_ him that he had forgotten for a bit in the middle that he’s still attracted to her. The sweater is bulky and does her no real favors, but it looks soft, and he cannot help but imagine wrapping his arms around her, feeling the warmth of it.

“I like the color,” he says. Brienne finally meets his eyes. There’s a brief, incredulous confusion on her face, and he smiles at her. “Gray suits you. It brings out the blue of your eyes.” He allows a pause. He allows the combined bafflement of his sister and his – _fine_ – his _crush_ to wash over him. “ _Bro_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's that part in Mad Max Fury Road where the caption says something like "[music getting louder in the distance]" and that's how I have been feeling about the fight chapter coming up next!! Oof, it's turning into a beast. 
> 
> I cannot promise it tomorrow, but I can promise I will try to finish it for tomorrow! In the meantime, thank you as always for reading!


	4. I've Seen the Way She Looks at You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime starts a fight, gets high, likes a tweet, talks to his crush (Brienne), talks to his OTHER crush (Sansa's mom), and is all-around a total fucking disaster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well the good news is that I finished this chapter today! The bad news is that i have not even STARTED chapter 5, so that will definitely NOT be posted tomorrow, unless I pull a fuckin miracle out of my ass

Later, Jaime will wonder if he should have noticed sooner. He will wonder if he could have done something to stop it from happening. It will wake him up in a year. Five years. Ten. It becomes one of those moments that will continue to come to him suddenly for _years_ , an unasked-for remembrance, and make him cringe. Even when the details are a bit fuzzier and the shame has mostly faded, it will still sting. He was meant to _notice_ those things, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t noticed anything, and Brienne was hurt because of it.

Brienne still remembers it later and cringes, too. He knows she does, even though she pretends that she doesn’t whenever he asks her. One year. Five years. Ten. She’ll always look at him like he’s crazy for even bringing it up. She has always been too nice, so he really does believe her when she says that she never blamed him, but still he knows she _must_ remember it. He remembers how hurt she had looked when it happened. Hurt and lost and small, like he’d felt in the library that time. Like he felt every time his father looked at him with that unique brand of Tywin Lannister disappointment.

“If you _had_ noticed, everything might be different,” Brienne reminds him once, when they’re both in college. Miles and miles away from each other, and her voice on the phone is patient like it always is, but it’s light, too. “So I’m glad it happened.”

It’ll help some. But still.

_Still_ , he should have noticed.

 

* * *

 

It’s just that Cersei has been so _fine_ , lately. She seems happier, and she’s been spending more time with her cheerleaders, doing fundraisers and planning events and making sure everything is running smoothly. That’s always when Cersei’s at her most satisfied – his sister secretly loves the crunch time that most people dread. She likes being busy and needed and useful. She hasn’t been home as much, and she’s been texting people a lot more often, but that could all be related to her events, so Jaime doesn’t think anything of it.

He doesn’t even think anything of it on the _day_. If Cersei’s acting odd at all, he doesn’t see it. If anyone’s whispering or pointing or trying to pretend that they aren’t about to watch a social trainwreck, he doesn’t notice. He even sees Brienne in the cafeteria just before it happens, and they have a brief, uneventful conversation about Mr. Selmy. He’s feeling good about it, because he and Brienne are maybe not quite _real friends_ yet, but they’re approaching friendship. It’s a possibility, and it’s more than he could have hoped for, even if it’s less than the true friendship that he really wants.

He sits down beside Cersei, who doesn’t look at him.

He starts to eat his lunch.

Across the cafeteria, there’s this loud, barking laugh. Something instinctive curls in Jaime’s stomach. It’s _cruel_ , the laugh, and he wishes that he was surprised to look up and see that the sound has come from the Stark table, where Brienne sits, looking up at a redhead kid who is spinning on his heel to face… _him_. Jaime. He’s looking straight at Jaime.

No, even worse. He’s looking at Cersei.

Jaime turns to look at his twin, and he sees that Cersei is fighting back a smile. She’s hiding it well, like she hides everything well, but he knows her enough to see it.

The redhead bows. A flourish. He straightens, and he’s still looking at Cersei, and his teeth flash white and proud, and Jaime doesn’t understand.

“I’ve just been accepted,” the redhead says, his voice lofty and smug and booming. A parody of high-class snobbishness. “I asked her to the dance, and she agreed. Sorry, gents. I’ve brought down the beast, Brienne the Beauty. I demand my prize!”

Jaime doesn’t understand. Jaime _doesn’t understand_. There are cheers and groans and loud laughs from around the cafeteria. Not everyone; just the people who were involved. Just the people who understand what the redhead is saying. Two boys. Three. Five. Seven. How many people were involved in this? They’re pulling out money. They’re throwing it at the redhead’s feet. Connington. That’s his name. Jaime’s eyes narrow on him. _Connington_.

“I was so close!” one boy yells.

“I couldn’t make myself do it,” another boy says, at the table next to Jaime’s. “It was so hard to keep a straight face.”

There’s something welling inside Jaime that he recognizes well. Hatred. White hot, simmering hatred. It’s Elia bleeding on the floor of the gym. It’s Aerys, his smug face, his arrogant fucking smile. Knowing that he would get away with it, because he was _the_ _king_.

Jaime looks at Brienne. She is very still, and her blankness hasn’t had time to settle on her face. He thinks she must be too shocked for that. She looks _humiliated._ She looks at Connington, and then at the other boys, and then she looks at Jaime for only a moment, and he feels sick, genuinely sick, physically hurt with horror. She can’t believe that he has anything to do with this, can she? She can’t believe that he would support this.

He rises to his feet. He has no idea what he’s going to do, or what he’s going to say. The anger is rising in him without direction, because he knows who is responsible but he still can’t quite believe it. It’s too horrible.

He finally looks at Cersei again.

“You did this,” he says. His tone is one of realization, and she looks up at him, surprised to see him standing.

“Sit down, Jaime. Don’t embarrass yourself,” she says.

“You _did_ , didn’t you? How could you be so fucking cruel?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cersei says, but Jaime will not be fooled.

“This is disgusting. Even for you,” he sneers. There is frustration in her expression now. She _really_ thought that she would get away with it. She thought that she would be able to keep her fingerprints far enough away from the bet that Jaime would believe her when she said that she wasn’t involved.

“You really think I would do something like this?” she asks.

“I know you would. You _did_.”

She leans back in her seat, and he sees the moment she decides to embrace it.

“It was only a bit of fun,” she says. She becomes the monster she knows he’s seeing. Leaning into it. Saying, _is this what you want me to be_? Because just as they are both bad at apologies, Cersei is bad at regrets. She would rather dig in even deeper.

Jaime turns back to look at Brienne. _A bit of fun_ , Cersei had said, and Brienne looks devastated on the other side of the cafeteria. _A bit of fun_ , and he has never been so angry with his twin. People are starting to react, finally. Some are laughing, but not as many as he would have feared. Margaery Tyrell and Renly Baratheon are both on their feet, shouting at Cersei, who only continues to smile. She’ll pretend at innocence, he knows, but she cannot help but enjoy the fruits of her plan for now. He feels like he’s going to die if he doesn’t do _something_ to counteract her maliciousness.

He just doesn’t know what will help.

Robb Stark makes the decision for him. There’s a loud clatter of cafeteria tray hitting floor, and Robb is pushing through the crowd to get to Connington, who’s still collecting his winnings, looking odiously pleased with himself.

Brienne jumps up to stop her best friend, pleading with him.

“I’ll _fucking_ kill him,” Robb is saying, and Jaime can feel his blood getting hotter in his veins at the sound of it. Like some kind of primal response to a call to action. Brienne is still holding Robb back despite the other boy’s fury. She’s too big for him, and Robb isn’t strong enough. Brienne may have beaten him sparring, but Jaime knows he’s strong enough now, with the anger lending him power. Sansa intercepts Theon Greyjoy, who tries to slip around the table unnoticed from the other side. Their cousin Jon looks like he’s preparing for battle a few feet back, but he’ll never push past either girl if they try to stop him.

Jaime knows that he could stand here and be a good boy and let Brienne handle this the way she wants to. He even understands that it’s probably the _honorable_ way to handle it. But Jaime also knows that Brienne deserves for people to stand up for her. She deserves to have an injustice like this answered by the people who care about her.

She deserves to know that _he_ would do it. Even though it’s obvious that Cersei is the one who set this up. Even though Cersei will be furious with him. Brienne deserves to know.

There are also a lot of things that Connington deserves, but he doesn’t really think about Connington at all. Not as if he’s a real person, anyway. Jaime just walks, and he picks up speed, and he pushes through the crowd. Some people see him coming and _scream_ , which is a little dramatic, and then finally he’s through the gathering horde, and he can see Connington standing right in front of him, and he uses both hands, palms out, to shove Connington in the chest. Connington falls back against the cafeteria table he’s standing beside.

Everything goes very quiet.

“Jaime, don’t,” Brienne says. It’s wavering. Weak. Helpless. It’s so many things that Brienne _isn’t_ , and Jaime remembers again the way Elia had looked crumpled on the floor of the gym, blood around her. You don’t forget your first crush, and you don’t stand by and just _watch_ when pain is being dealt to your second.

He grabs Connington by the collar of his t-shirt. Connington is frozen in fear, and Jaime relishes in it. Connington really does seem to think that Jaime is going to listen to Brienne and let this all be solved without violence, but that really isn’t _Jaime_. He looks back at Brienne and sees that her big blue eyes have gone even bigger. Maybe he’ll feel guilty about this later. He isn’t sure.

“ _Someone_ has to kick this guy’s ass,” he says.

When he punches Connington, the pain of it is a welcome pleasure. It reverberates up his arm, and it’s _good_. It’s been a while since he’s put his fists to use like this. Robb and Theon both whoop out and join him, three unlikely allies because this is what Brienne _deserves_. The rest of the cafeteria erupts after them. People are always eager for a good fight. Maybe some of them were even laughing at Brienne’s pain a few moments ago, but they’ll know soon enough to keep their mouths shut once it becomes clear who’s on the winning side.

He doesn’t pay attention to them. He hardly notices the others. He hears Sam Tarly braying at Jon to be careful as Jon and one of the bet boys lurch into and soundly destroy a cafeteria table. He hears Sansa shouting out helpful instructions from her perch on top of the Stark table. “Jaime, on your left! Robb, behind you! Oh, Jon, _look out_! Theon, duck!” Like a conductor at the world’s only interesting orchestra. He hears Margaery’s voice, rising above the rest of it, shouting “kick his fucking ass, Jaime”, along with several slightly less encouraging things at Cersei.

He hears these things, but he hardly registers them. Connington is wily, and he fights like a coward, ducking out of the way of Jaime’s strikes and shoving chairs between them. Jaime isn’t deterred. He feels a savage pleasure at the other boy’s fear. Where’s the lofty disdain now? Where’s that snobbish certainty of his own self-importance? Jaime wants to beat it out of him completely.

“Have you lost your fucking _mind_?” Connington asks. “It was your sister’s idea!”

“You didn’t have to help her,” Jaime points out, and he takes another swing.

No, they didn’t have to help her, and they didn’t have to relish in Brienne’s humiliation. Jaime is sick with guilt and sick with hatred and sick with certainty that he could have stopped this if only he had been paying more attention, but he will not let that stop him from taking his anger out on these kids who gladly manipulated Brienne and treated her feelings like sport. _The beast,_ he had called her. The beast. Jaime will show him a beast.

He does not let Connington avoid him forever. Jaime is used to using his strength and his agility, and he uses both to pursue Connington until he can get a good hit off on him. He hits him cleanly, and hard, and Connington stumbles. He hits Jaime back, but Jaime hardly even feels it. He trips him, and Connington lands on his back, his hands up. Jaime smiles.

“Had enough already?” he asks. “You seemed so sure of yourself earlier. Suppose you aren’t as big a man as you think you are.”

“What the fuck is your problem, Lannister?” Connington asks. His voice is high and desperate. “It was just a _joke_.”

“A joke,” Jaime says. His blood has not gotten any cooler. He can see the fear growing on Connington’s face; it was the wrong thing to say, and Connington knows it.

But then he hears something behind him, and he turns, because he knows that sound from when they sparred at Goodwin’s. Brienne punctuates all her most devastating swings with these loud yells, almost screams of effort. And she’s doing it now as she is _punching the back of Gregor Clegane’s head_ , only a few feet away from him.

Gregor Clegane is the most casually horrifying person Jaime knows. Cersei likes him for some reason, probably because he’s easy to read and she knows at all times exactly where she stands with him. But to almost everyone else, Clegane is a monster. Something to be afraid of. The people on opposing wrestling teams call him _The Mountain_ ; that’s probably the most polite descriptor they could think of for him. His brother Sandor, who wears a massive burn scar on his face due to a fucking _childhood disagreement_ , has a few more creative names for him.

And Brienne has just _punched_ him.

“What the fuck are you _doing_?” Jaime cries. Brienne ignores him. Loras Tyrell is running atop the cafeteria tables like he’s skipping stones on a pond, and he plants his legs and _swings_ with a cafeteria tray, hitting Clegane before he can take revenge on Brienne. Clegane starts to turn to see who hit him, and Brienne punches him again. Clegane may be too slow to spot Loras in all his spritely glory, but he isn’t too slow to hit Brienne back. She pulls her face out of the way of a devastating injury, but he still manages a glancing blow, and the shock that had kept Jaime tethered leaves him. He cannot let her be hurt. He’s supposed to be _stopping_ her from being hurt!

She goes for Clegane’s knees while Jaime goes for his kidneys. Loras comes back for another go, hitting Clegane hard enough to crack the cafeteria tray. Jaime dodges out of the way and sees Cersei standing up at her table, watching the scene with wide eyes and a slack jaw.

“They’re going to take down The Mountain!” someone yells.

Brienne slams into him, knocking them both out of the way of a swing from Clegane that would have taken off their heads. Jaime puts a hand on her shoulder to steady her. He’s practically vibrating with energy now, standing so close to her, in this middle of this enormous cafeteria fight. There are going to be consequences for this, he knows. There’s going to be a lot of trouble. He’ll be surprised if he isn’t suspended. But right now, he sees the light in Brienne’s eyes from the adrenaline of the battle, and it is so opposite from how lost and broken she seemed before, and he is viciously _glad_ that he started this.

“We’ll be legends when we pull this off,” he says. Brienne rolls her eyes, and it only makes his smile wider.

Clegane slams his fist down on the table between them just as Jaime and Brienne spring apart. The table crumbles under the force of it. Brienne dodges away to grab Clegane’s attention, and Jaime instinctively moves around to his other side to distract him when he has to. They work well together, he and Brienne. Fighting against her was exhilarating, but he’s not surprised to find he fights better _with_ her. They have this instinctive connection, this…

He’s gearing up to punch Clegane, but then someone grabs his wrist and yanks it behind his back. He spins to face his attacker and finds it’s Vargo Hoat. Unpleasant kid. He is and always has been cruel in the same way that Clegane is cruel, except he’s quieter about it.

And where Clegane likes Cersei, and therefore tolerates Jaime like the rest of Cersei’s friends, Vargo Hoat has nothing but disdain for any of the Lannisters. He worked for Tywin’s company one summer, and Tywin fired him for being such a waste of space.

It’s not surprising that Hoat looks pleased to have caught Jaime like this.

He expects Hoat to say something. Gloat. Talk a lot as he tries to fight Jaime. It would be a fairly one-sided fight, but a lot of people make the mistake of thinking Jaime’s just a rich kid who can’t back up his words with prowess. Hoat certainly wouldn’t be the first to try the Kingslayer.

But Hoat doesn’t say _anything_.

He only smiles.

That’s the part that will fuck Jaime up later, when he thinks about it, especially when he’s high on painkillers and drifting in and out of sleep. Hoat just smiles, and he never looks away from Jaime’s eyes, and he jerks Jaime’s arm back and grabs it with both hands, his fingers grasping and bruising, and...

The pain isn’t immediate. The horrible sensation of something breaking, something going horribly wrong in Jaime’s wrist, that’s all instantaneous. He hears and feels it, but it’s not pain for a second. It’s just horror, staring at Hoat’s eyes, feeling helpless and a little scared to look down, and then suddenly he’s screaming, because, oh, _there’s_ the pain. Hoat doesn’t let go right away. He _keeps_ twisting. Jaime feels something break skin, and he looks down and sees white bone poking out, and he has to swallow a sudden nausea to see it. This can’t be real. This _can’t_ be real.

Hoat finally releases him, and Jaime backpedals so quickly that he falls, trips, hits his head on the linoleum. Hoat stalks after him, laughing, and Jaime pushes himself back until he hits the legs of one of the cafeteria tables. Hoat’s still laughing, and Jaime looks down and sees that his wrist is still broken. There’s still bone poking out. He’s still in pain.

This is real, then. This has happened.

And then, like some golden warrior out of Age of Heroes legend, Brienne is coming up behind Hoat, and she’s grabbing him by the back of his neck with one big hand, and she’s slamming Hoat down onto the table above Jaime. Hoat manages to free himself, and he swings his fist, and he strikes Brienne right in the cheekbone, where Clegane had punched her earlier. Her head snaps to the side with the force of the punch, but she doesn’t appear to have even _felt_ it. She turns her face back towards Hoat slowly, her eyes alight with a terrible fury, and Jaime feels…

It is relief. It is hope. It is this nameless welling feeling in his chest that’s like an echo of future love. It’s the same feeling he felt when he saw his soulmark for the first time. Brienne draws back her fist, and she punches Hoat, and Hoat slides to the floor, entirely boneless, unconscious.

_It’s her_ , Jaime thinks, inanely. He is suddenly certain that if Brienne turned around, he would see the red and gold shimmering of his sword through the t-shirt on her back. Never mind that it’s a blue t-shirt, opaque and made from thick material. Never mind that there’s no way the universe would be so cruel as to stick someone as good as Brienne Tarth with someone as weak-willed and terrible as him. In that moment after she punches Hoat, in that moment when she is the hottest she’s ever been and he is at his most uniquely vulnerable, he just _knows_ it’s her. It has to be. When he looks at her standing above him, he can feel all those things that he couldn’t put words to the first time he saw it. He can hardly put words to them now.

Brienne holds out her hand, and Jaime takes it, curling his injured wrist to his chest to protect it. He’s shaky and weak on his feet, and Brienne pulls him closer, shielding him. People are bumping and jostling them as she tries to get him out of the cafeteria, and there’s still _more_ pain, and then there are Starks around them, creating a path so that Brienne and Jaime can get safely through. Brienne pulls his left arm over her shoulder, and he can smell her. He grabs her shoulder to keep her close.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” he says, and then he does, all over the floor in front of him. Brienne sighs.

 

* * *

 

She doesn’t leave his side, though. She’s with him in the nurse’s office. The nurse takes one look at Jaime’s wrist, goes even paler than he already was, and picks up the school phone to call an ambulance. It makes Jaime laugh a little, though mostly it just makes him want to be sick again. Brienne helps him sit down, and she holds his left hand, and she doesn’t let go.

He’s in and out, dazed and fading, and he doesn’t have anything to say, but she doesn’t leave his side. When the ambulance comes and the EMTs start to treat him, she’s still there. Her big blue eyes are still wide and concerned for him, watching everything the EMTs are doing. The male EMT whistles under his breath like he’s impressed when he sees the injury, which makes Jaime feel pretty good about himself.

“He’s a pretty one under all the blood, isn’t he?” the female EMT jokes to Brienne, which makes Brienne go all splotchy and red. Jaime sighs happily, dreamily, and the male EMT chuckles.

“Painkiller’s starting to kick in, lad,” he says. “Try and remember to have a filter. Don’t say anything that will embarrass you later.”

 

* * *

 

“I am a _hero_ ,” Jaime proclaims to everyone.

Several of the teachers roll their eyes. So does Tyrion. But most of the kids gathered outside to see him off in his ambulance cheer. Robb calls him _all right_. Jon tells him he fought like a badass. Theon smirks at him, which Jaime decides to take as a _well done_. Sansa tells him he was just like a knight from a story. Brienne doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t leave his side, either, and she looks worried, and he’ll take it.

“I’ll call and inform father,” Tyrion says as Mr. Mormont and Mr. Selmy start herding the kids back into the building. “It will be fun to tell him you were hurt standing up for the innocent. He’ll hate that. But maybe he’ll have his secretary send a fruit basket to the hospital or something, so at least you’ll have snacks.”

“Weird kids,” the male EMT mutters aside to the female one, who arches an eyebrow in agreement.

Jaime suddenly remembers Brienne blushing when the female EMT called him _pretty_ , and he shouts “wait, wait, Brienne!” hoping that he hasn’t missed her in the mass of students moving back into the school. But no, she’s still standing there beside him. Her cheek is already starting to bruise, and if he wasn’t strapped in, and if she wasn’t so fucking tall, he would kiss it. He reaches out to grab her arm, instead. “A favor, my lady.”

He hears Tyrion quietly groan beside him. The male EMT hides a chuckle under a cough. Jaime couldn’t care _less_. And yes, he’s high, but also he’s just…it’s _Brienne_. She’s his soulmate. She _has_ to be.

“Favors are given out before the battle,” Brienne says, unmoved. “And I’m not a lady.”

“Semantics. I fought The Mountain for you.”

“ _I_ fought The Mountain for _you_.”

Jaime sighs again, remembering how they’d fought side-by-side.

“We made such a good team,” he says.

“Well, Sandor was…”

_Sandor_. Who gives a fuck about Sandor? _Jaime’s_ the one who fought Connington. He’s the one who helped her take The Mountain. He’s the one who had his wrist broken. _Sandor_.

“ _Bro_. Brienne. Broenne.” _Gods_ , he’s funny. He’s crushing it. “Sandor was not half the hero I was today! I was injured protecting your honor.”

“My _honor_.”

“Yes. So I demand a favor.”

“What exactly do you want? I have three pieces of gum.” Yes, Brienne is definitely his soulmate, because she’s funny too.

“Your number,” Jaime blurts. The male EMT laughs.

“That’s the smoothest shit I’ve ever heard,” he says.

“Oof, and he’s only in high school,” the female one says. She called him pretty. _She’s_ pretty. He wishes she’d call Brienne pretty, too. That might cheer Brienne up. Maybe if enough people call her pretty, she’ll believe them. Has _he_ called Brienne pretty yet? He should. “Imagine when he’s legal, Davos. There’ll be no hope for the rest of you.”

“I don’t have a pen,” Brienne says, her voice weak.

“I’ll text it to you,” Sansa says. He finally releases Brienne’s arm.

“Thank you, Sansa. You’ve always been my favorite Stark.” _As long as we aren’t counting your mother_. “Also, Brienne, I will take one of those pieces of gum, please. Everything tastes like vomit.”

“There might be some hope for us yet,” Davos the male EMT says.

 

* * *

 

“Gods, she’s gorgeous, right?” Jaime asks, the second the doors close behind them. “When did _that_ happen?”

“Who, Mel?” Davos asks. “She’s fine, for a witch.”

“Love you too, Dav,” Mel calls from the front, already squealing out of the parking lot.

“No, no. She’s also very pretty.” He yells, “you are also very pretty!” to make sure Mel hears. “But no. The blonde. Tall.”

“She’s a literal child. I’m not saying _shit_.”

“She’s seventeen, I think.”

“And I’m old enough to be her grandfather. Relax, kid. You’re high.”

“I am, aren’t I? Did you see the bone poking out of my wrist?”

“Yeah. Did _you_? Seemed like you couldn’t look at it.”

“I didn’t want to throw up again. Are you making fun of me?”

“This job has few joys, so yes. I am.”

“Leave the lad alone,” Mel says. “And yes, your girl was very pretty. Not in a conventional way, perhaps, but I see beauty in everyone.”

“Gods, here we go,” Davos grumbles.

 

* * *

 

They take Jaime’s phone away once he gets to the hospital, and then he’s in surgery, and then he’s in and out for a bit, and nothing makes sense. When he comes back around for more than a few seconds at a time, his father is there, and so is Tyrion. Tyrion slips him his phone when no one’s watching. It’s been fully charged, too, because Tyrion is the best. It makes Jaime cry, because he’s still waking up and higher than ever, and it has the benefit of embarrassing Tywin enough to get him to leave the room.

Tyrion tells him about what happened after he was taken out of the school. It sounds like Cersei’s going to avoid being punished for the bet, but on the plus side Jaime’s going to avoid being punished for starting a fight over it, so that’s good. Everyone _knows_ what Cersei did, and though there are plenty of people who think it’s funny, there are more who think it was monstrous, and Jaime is grateful to hear that. He’s also grateful that Cersei doesn’t come by, that first day.

(She comes by on the second, and it’s awkward, and she apologizes for the fact that he was hurt, and he asks if she’s ready to apologize for anything else, but she isn’t. He tells her she should probably leave, and then he cries again, which makes _her_ cry, but he’s still on painkillers, so it’s okay).

When Tyrion leaves, Jaime scrolls through his messages. Sansa Stark has sent him Brienne’s number with a bunch of heart emojis and one kissy-face, which freaks him out at first until he decides that Sansa is probably just smart enough to know _why_ he wants Brienne’s number. He puts it in his phone and texts her that he’s out of surgery and that he might need another one soon. She texts him back immediately. She tells him that she’s relieved he’s okay and she asks him if he’s even allowed to have his phone in the hospital, and he feels that beautiful, terrifying hope again.

Tyrion has texted him too, telling him to check out Twitter for a sampling of very good jokes about the fight. He isn’t wrong. It seems like the whole school is tweeting about it. There are videos and everything, but Jaime’s very high and definitely not ready to watch any of them. He scrolls through all the memes instead. He chuckles at a few and screenshots his favorites. He sends some to Brienne, and she responds with emojis mostly. There’s one from Loras that she particularly likes. She sends him twelve laughing crying emojis over it.

There’s this one from Margaery that says “Jaime Lannister when Brienne kicked Hoat’s ass to save his life:” followed by an image of some woman with the caption “[chanting] Top me. Top me. Top me.” One quick Google search later for some illuminating clarification, and Jaime’s blushing a bit, and he hits the little heart because, well, _yeah_. Margaery gets it.

 

* * *

 

Over the next few days, he texts Brienne a lot. He sends her screenshots. He sends her links. The fight gets a lot of attention. Mostly locally, though there’s this annoying YouTube kid who posts a video in a compilation of high school fights, and Jaime’s wrist injury is very visible in it, so it gets a lot of comments. Jaime scrolls through them, laughing at the ones that call him out for being obviously _super into Brienne_ , because he’s pretty sure it’s obvious. He’s just happy that she doesn’t seem irritated by his constant texts. She replies to all of them fairly quickly, and she seems to have an easier time texting than she does talking in person. He misses seeing her blush, and he misses her blue eyes, and if Tyrion literally has to leave the room to laugh when Jaime reveals that On Many Painkillers Jaime chose the blue cast because it made him think of Brienne’s eyes, he knows it’s what he deserves.

His crush has become especially obvious to Margaery Tyrell and Sansa Stark, who keep texting him to remind him that he liked that tweet. They’ve got screenshots of the notification and everything. Margaery sends the shot to him at least once a day with a text that usually says something like “how’s my favorite bottom? Here’s a friendly reminder” or _something_ that makes him want to die a little bit. His defense – that he had been on painkillers at the time and had immediately unliked it once he woke up enough to realize the implications – was not a very good one, and they have hounded him about it ever since.

 

* * *

 

When he is finally allowed back in school, with a whole list of things he’s not supposed to do because of his cast that he almost immediately forgets, he brings a metallic gold sharpie with him and goes and finds Brienne. She smiles when she sees him. Unburdened by anything that came before. She _smiles_ to see him, and he feels his stomach turning over with uncomplicated joy. He holds out the marker.

“Sign it,” he says. “My knight in shining armor.”

“I thought I was _bro_ ,” she says, and she takes the marker from him. He grabs her fingers before he can think to stop himself.

“No,” he says. He’s glad to see her eyes again. Big and blue and beautiful as ever. “I think we’re a little past casual hallway _bros_ at this point, aren’t we?”

She grins at him, and she rolls her eyes, and she blushes. She writes _stop trying to be chivalrous, bro_ , and she seems proud when he laughs very hard at it.

 

* * *

 

Jaime has always done everything very intensely. He hates intensely. He loves intensely. He pursues friendship with a girl who hated him a few weeks ago intensely. Jaime’s just the sort of person who doesn’t know how _not_ to be intense. He doesn’t see the point in something if you’re only going to be halfway passionate about it.

He and Cersei barely speak anymore on the way to and from school. They make a passing attempt at civility when they’re home together, and in class, and when they’re forced to be seen in public together by their father, but otherwise they don’t interact. She seems to understand that this is a rift that has been sharply opened between them, and she seems to understand that nothing is going to fix it except perhaps enough time and space, so at least she gives that to him.

He starts sitting with the Starks and Tyrion at lunch. Tyrion pretends at being calm and collected about everything, but Jaime knows he’s secretly thrilled with the turn this all has taken. Tyrion and Cersei feud openly now; without Jaime to stand between them, they are free to loathe each other as much as they want, and Jaime has chosen Tyrion's _side_.

Brienne seems nervous about his distance from Cersei, because she is kind, and because she worries that it’s _her_ fault. It isn’t, but he isn’t very good at explaining that. He wants to tell her all of it. He wants to tell her that he and Cersei are growing in opposite directions and that he will not regret his choices if she will not repent hers. He tries to show her, instead, by being around her, and by being open about wanting her around. He remembers what Elia said, warning him about his cynicism, so he is rarely cynical with Brienne. Not that he even has the impulse; time spent with her is special.

He asks her for help, too, because his broken wrist and his terrible cast prevent him from doing so much. Brienne helps him, and she smiles at him, and she texts him all the time even when they’re not together, and Jaime keeps thinking back to the way he’d felt when she stood over him. He had been so sure, so _certain_ in that moment that she was his soulmate.

He’s not sure how he feels about it anymore. Part of him longs to ask her, or to devise some scenario where they could go swimming together and he could see for himself the skin on the back of her shoulderblade. But there’s a larger part that doesn’t _want_ to know, because he’s beginning to think that it might not matter.

He’s never bothered to like anyone with the same intensity with which he likes Brienne. Elia, he saw in tank tops all the time when she was practicing, so he knew. She was a safe crush to have, because she was never going to be interested in him anyway. But Brienne…the more time he spends with Brienne, the more he thinks he might actually have a shot. She likes him now. He knows that for sure, even if he still doesn’t know if she’d ever be able to look past how cruel he was to her in the beginning. Would she ever believe that he thinks she’s pretty? Would she ever be able to hear his words of flattery and hear anything but his sister’s false tone? If she _is_ his soulmate, he thinks she’ll probably _have_ to believe him. She’ll see their matching marks and she’ll know. But if she isn’t, he can’t imagine she’d want to risk it. Trusting that he isn’t lying, or isn’t just perpetuating another fucking bet. Trusting that he won’t leave her if he ever _does_ find the twin to his sword. It happens all the time, he knows, and Brienne will never believe him enough to think he won’t go running when something _better_ comes along. As if anything better ever could.

He doesn’t make a decision, because Jaime is bad at making decisions, almost as much as he is bad at apologies. He is needy, instead. He doubles down on their friendship. He asks her for help with _everything_.

Cersei still drives him to school in the morning, but he finds reasons to hang around after school so that he can ask Brienne for a ride home. Only on the days when he knows she has her car with her – there’s a very casual attitude towards ride-giving in the Tarth-Stark-Greyjoy alliance, which means a lot of the time Brienne doesn’t have a way to drive him anywhere, and he’s not going to risk being stuck in a car alone with Robb Stark ever again if he can help it. He’ll hang around for extra credit with some teacher, and then he’ll jog out to the practice field where Brienne is usually running drills with Robb, or he’ll head to the library where she’s writing a paper or doing her homework, and he’ll ask her. She’ll give it to him, of course, and they’ll talk on the way home, and she never sounds put-upon or annoyed by him.

 

* * *

 

The extremely serious Stark father, Ned, who has apparently heard all about Jaime’s cafeteria heroics, spots him one day as he’s waiting outside the school for Brienne to give him a ride, and though he glowers at Jaime’s cast and seems like he’s not impressed with Jaime’s choice of violence, he invites Jaime to a holiday party at the Stark house for all their friends. Jaime accepts, of course, after asking if Brienne will be going, and he ignores the way Ned rolls his eyes at him. He thinks of wearing something silly and ridiculous and holiday themed, but in the end gets too insecure, and he wears his best-fitting green sweater. He’s pretty sure he catches Brienne checking him out in it. She smiles and blushes a bit every time he introduces himself as _Brienne’s friend, Jaime_ , so he does it as often as he can.

Sansa Stark corners him in the kitchen and reminds him that he should make a move, and Jaime whines about it and begs her to delete the screenshot and forget she ever saw the stupid tweet.

“What tweet?” Catelyn asks, appearing around the corner with an empty serving tray.

“Do _not_ explain that tweet to my mother,” Sansa hisses at him.

“I won’t,” Jaime says, though he _deeply_ wants to. Sansa makes herself scarce, so Jaime taste-tests Catelyn’s new round of appetizers while he whispers the whole story to her. Starting with his assholery and ending with his heroism, and reluctantly leaving out the tweet thing.

“Ned and I aren’t soulmates, you know,” she says, rearranging the food on the tray to make up for the fact that Jaime has snuck another bit when she wasn’t looking. “It isn’t everything.”

“Really? Do you think it’s important to Brienne? The soulmate thing?”

Catelyn pauses, and she appears to actually be giving it some thought, which immediately makes her the most helpful person he’s spoken to about his crush.

“I _do_ think it’s important to her,” she says. “Ever since she was a child, she’s had it. I think she has clung to it in a way to make up for disappointment. There’s always been a lack of interest from boys, and that can be hard for a young girl, especially one who feels as deeply as Brienne does. But I think if she knew that you feel about her the way you do, it would be just as special. I’ve seen the way she looks at you, you know.”

“Yeah? How does she look at me?”

“You’re not getting anything else out of me, young man. Including any more snacks. Go back to the party. Talk to Brienne. You’ll figure it out.”

“It was important to me, too,” Jaime blurts. Catelyn raises one eyebrow in his direction. “The soulmark. When I was a kid. It was important to me, too. But when she’s around, it’s…it’s not as important anymore. Was it like that with you?”

Catelyn smiles, soft. It’s answer enough, but she says, “yes, that’s exactly what it was like”, and Jaime feels better.

 

* * *

 

Jaime is fairly annoying. He knows this because everyone tells him he is. Lovingly or with genuine malice. Both are probably correct. And some of that is on purpose, especially with Brienne, because he likes the way she huffs and acts all irritated about it, because she still smiles. So he begs her for help with things. He bats his eyes at her every time someone mentions the fight. He plays the part of damsel in distress, looking for a big strong knight to help him cut his food into smaller bits or help him with the buttons on his jacket or whatever else is slightly harder for a one-handed man to do.

And of course there’s a stupid part of him that’s desperately _not joking_ when he thanks her or says he would be useless without her or tells her that she’s his hero, but Brienne always laughs and remains completely oblivious.

Deciding to push it farther that one day isn’t really a conscious choice. It’s more a stream of words that come out of his mouth and leave him reeling after because he has spoken aloud so many things that he didn’t even realize he wanted.

It’s just, Brienne is so helpful, carrying his books and putting the ones he doesn’t need in his locker for later. He’s been talking to her about some stupid movie he wants to see, and maybe he’s hoping she suggests they go together, but of course she doesn’t, because she never suggests things, and he finds himself saying, “you treat me like a real lady. Carrying my books. Cutting up my food. Opening my locker. You’re a very good boyfriend.”

She laughs at him as she puts his books in her locker. That loud laugh that he loves.

“If this is what you think a boyfriend does, I pity the girl who agrees to date you. Cutting up her food? She’s a girl, not a baby bird.”

Brienne carries the books they’ll need in their next few classes. His on top of hers, because she’s very strong, and he’s sick of trying to pretend that that’s not one of the hottest things about her. “Hey,” he says. “I would be a fantastic boyfriend. I would only cut up” _your food_ “her food if she asked.”

“Is she five years old, this imaginary girlfriend?”

“No!” _Seventeen, and at least an inch taller than me, actually._ “But if she ever broke her arm defending me in a fight…”

“Such a specific situation for a five-year-old to find herself in.”

“It could happen. And even if it didn’t, I still…well, I’d help her carry her books if they were too heavy. Though I can’t imagine they would be. She would have to be spectacularly frail.” He tries to imagine Brienne ever needing his help with _anything_ strength-related. Unless she needed to two-man lift something, like a heavy bookshelf, he would be shit out of luck. “It does sound like I’m planning on dating a child, doesn’t it? I guess I don’t know very much about high school boyfriend stuff.”

“I don’t know very much about it either. But cliché high school stuff like that…I don’t know. I’ve never liked it. I guess because it’s not very applicable to me.”

Which, of course, sends Jaime into a fucking _tailspin_ of imagining he and Brienne in all sorts of high school cliché scenarios. Him wearing her letterman jacket. Her asking him to prom. Her pulling up to his house to pick him up for a date, her hair all windblown in a red convertible. Gods, that would be amazing.

“That’s true,” he manages to say, pretending like his voice isn’t strangled just at the _thought_ of her coming off the field during a soccer game and pulling him into a kiss as he cheers for her. “You’d make a much better cliché boyfriend than a cliché girlfriend. You’d be carrying _my_ books for sure. I like to think of myself as versatile. I’m handy in a fight, and I would totally pull out a chair at a dinner table for you, but I _do_ like you catering to me like this.”

“Catering to you.”

“Taking care of me,” he says, and he bats his eyelashes again as he leans in and smiles. She grins and pushes him away. “If I _was_ your girlfriend…”

“For fuck’s sake,” she laughs.

“ _Or_ your boyfriend, I would know exactly how to treat you.”

“I can’t wait to hear this.”

His palms are sweating, he’s pretty sure.

“Well, I wouldn’t need to carry anything for you, obviously, but territory _does_ need to be marked. I’d wear your soccer jersey.”

“Didn’t I _just_ say I didn’t want clichés?”

“For the _boy_ to wear the _girl’s_ jersey? Brienne, we’re breaking barriers, here. You’d wear my football jersey sometimes too, of course, but _still_. Barriers.”

She would look so _good_ in a football jersey. He wonders vaguely if he could talk her into trying out next year. Probably not. Robb Stark would kill him if he stole her from soccer.

“I’m so sorry,” she says with mock sympathy. “Of course. Go on.”

“Well I’d cheer for you in the stands of your games, obviously. I would bring an airhorn, because I know it would annoy you but also make you smile.”

“Fortunately for all of our eardrums, soccer season is over.”

He keeps going, undeterred by her deadpan amusement. He imagines it. Going with her to heroic fairs. Cheering from the stands while he’s still in his cast, but then fighting alongside her once he’s well again, watching her back while she watches his. In his imaginings, he’s in brilliant gold armor while she’s in that dark blue set that Goodwin is making her. They’re fighting The Mountain in his imaginings, too.

And going to the movies, just the two of them. Sharing popcorn and holding hands. Maybe not the best idea with his sweaty palm situation, but in his imaginings, she doesn’t mind. She doesn’t seem like the type of person who’d mind in real life, either. He would go to a horror movie with her in a _heartbeat_. He likes being scared, but he’d like that she was there with him to be scared alongside him.

“See,” he says when he’s finished rambling and making an ass of himself. “I’d know exactly how to treat Brienne Tarth. I would never cut up your food. I promise. I’d shake on it, but…”

He indicates his cast, and she laughs at him, and they walk through the door to their history class, and she plops his books down on his desk, and she goes to her seat. He smiles at her down the aisle, and she smiles back, and that’s the end of it.

It’s the end of it for Brienne, at least. Jaime tortures himself for the rest of the class by daydreaming about her pulling off a football helmet and shaking out her hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fast forward to five years in the future where Margaery is STILL referring to Jaime as "my favorite bottom", which is very insulting to several other men in her life.


	5. Thank You, Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime gets to see Brienne in a tank top, which is maybe the highlight of his existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone still reading and commenting! I did not manage to perform any miracles yesterday. This chapter has given me major trouble in both stories. Why? I have no idea! But I finished it!

How do you know if someone you like is also interested in you?

Jaime ponders that one for a while. Like, weeks.

He knows that people _do_ like him, because they’re not quiet about it. They giggle and check him out and ask him questions they don’t really need the answers to. They act like they didn’t _mean_ to bump into him in the hallway _but now that they have his attention_ …That sort of thing. Never mind that he’s never actually _dated_ anyone. People just have this expectation of him. They put out the kind of signals that are supposed to be universal to guys like him, and they think he’ll respond.

But he’s already friends with Brienne. He already _has_ her attention. He just has no idea what kind of attention it is. Or what kind of attention it _could_ be, maybe, if he could find a way to get her to see him as something else in addition to being her most annoying friend.

He considers asking someone for advice. Like Elia, or Rhaella. Someone far enough removed that he doesn’t have to deal with seeing their smug faces every time he interacts with Brienne. Aunt Genna is another option. All three of them would make a big deal of it, though. And they don’t know Brienne. They know _themselves_ , so they could give him generic advice that might work with them, but Brienne isn’t _like_ them. Jaime is a bit biased, but Brienne isn’t like anyone he’s ever met. He’s not sure they’d know how to handle it any better than he does.

Margaery and Sansa are obvious choices, because they both know Brienne the way he does. But they have enough ammunition against him as it is, and he doesn’t think he could stomach _more_ teasing about it. Tyrion, too, would be very annoying about the whole thing, and smug, and he already watches every interaction between Jaime and Brienne with this irritating _knowing_ look, like an asshole.

Cersei’s canny and would probably have some insight, but that’s obviously the worst idea of the bunch.

He can’t bring himself to search the internet, because that feels too pathetic and also too generic, so he decides that he needs to trust his own instincts. That’s more romantic anyway, probably. Doing it on his own.

He’s sincere in his thank yous every time Brienne helps him with something. He shows his affection with an arm around her shoulder, or ruffling her hair a bit, or kissing her on the cheek. Friendly gestures to show he cares about her. She moves her seat to sit beside him in their shared classes – at his encouragement – so she can help him take notes, since he can’t write with his left hand and his right is still in this fucking cast. He praises her to their teachers, which always makes her blush. He notices the whispers and the hears the snide little murmurs of the other students, especially when he and Brienne walk down the hall together. He pretends he doesn’t hear them. And maybe he’s more aggressively friendly in public, just to do what he can to shut them all up, but he was already pretty aggressively friendly to her, so that’s no great change.

It’s just, it’s hard to tell with Brienne.

He flirts with her, a bit. He’s always been told he’s a natural flirt, but he makes a real effort with Brienne Sometimes she laughs and sometimes she blushes and sometimes she changes the subject, and he’s never able to figure out how she feels. She’s so good at burying everything. He wonders what that’s like. He’s never been able to bury anything.

Sometimes she glances his way when people are looking at them or talking about them in the hallway, and he can see her wondering, like, “is _this_ the time he’s going to notice that we shouldn’t be hanging out together?” and he’ll feel like he understands what her insecurities are about. But then another time she’ll so pointedly change the subject when he gets too close to real flirting, and it makes him think he was wrong before, and that maybe she’s just interested in friendship with him.

Which wouldn’t be the worst thing, obviously. He’s not one of those guys. Rumor has it Mr. Baelish used to be in love with Catelyn Stark, and he’s been a dick to the Stark kids ever since, except for Sansa (which is…troubling), because Catelyn never saw him as anything but a friend. Jaime’s not like that. Bitter and consumed by old regrets, or so entitled that he thinks Brienne _has_ to have feelings for him just because he has them for her. Sure, there’s a little of that frustration, that feeling of _why doesn’t she like me? Everyone’s constantly telling me how hot I am! Can’t she see that?_ But it’s an insignificant, petty feeling next to the gratefulness he feels that she cares for him at all, that she’s his friend after how cruel he used to be to her.

And the thing is, they’re _good_ together. It isn’t just about the fact that he likes the way she looks, and it isn’t just about the fact that she makes him feel safe. She makes him laugh. She makes him forget about his family’s issues every time he’s with her. And she’s so _smart_. She can explain anything to him, and he’ll understand it. Once she gets out of her own head, she tells amazing stories. She knows these random little factoids about everything, and it’s always this little surprise about her. Something funny and nonsensical and irrelevant.

She never laughs at him when he asks stupid questions. And she indulges him when he asks _purposely_ stupid questions. They’ll be sitting at the pizza place down the street from the school, and he’ll take a slice and ask something like, “what do you think was the pizza of three hundred years ago? Like, what was the food that people ate even though it was bad for them?” And Brienne will tilt her head to the side, and she’ll give it serious thought, and she’ll say something like “I bet it was something that was actually very healthy for them. Something they were superstitious about for some reason. People were quite stupid back then”.

She talks less than he does, but she seems to _like_ listening to him, and if he realizes he’s rambling and tries to apologize, she always stops him.

“I was listening!” she promises, with that smile of hers.

His father obviously wants to hate her, which is another thing that Jaime likes. One time, Brienne drops him off when Tywin happens to be outside, and she can just _tell_ that Tywin is an asshole, and she blurts out something that she probably thinks is helpful. Something about how she’s been helping Jaime with his schoolwork, like she thinks Jaime needs an excuse to be hanging out with her. Jaime re-introduces her as his friend, making sure she hears the emphasis, before she gets in her car and drives away.

“You don’t need any unnecessary distractions from your schoolwork,” Tywin says.

“She’s far more serious about studying than I am,” Jaime replies, his one good hand shoved into his jacket pocket so Tywin doesn’t see it shaking. “So if it’s my schoolwork you’re worried about, you should be encouraging me.”

Tywin hums slightly under his breath, watching Brienne’s car as it rounds the corner and allows her to escape. Lucky girl.

“She’s the one you did the project with?”

“The one who got me an A on the paper, yes.”

“She’s a very awkward-looking girl.”

“Which of course doesn’t mean she isn’t smart, or a good friend.”

“No.” Tywin frowns some more, and he looks at Jaime, and Jaime can tell he’s trying to find some logical reason to tell Jaime not to hang out with Brienne anymore. Aside from the _obvious_ _unacceptability_. Jaime just smiles at him, and he walks into the house, and later he texts Brienne and tells her _you’re my friend. What my father thinks doesn’t matter. Please don’t think you have to lie to him_ , because he hates that she thought it would matter. Like she automatically seemed to believe that Jaime would care about his father’s opinion more than her own feelings. He _hates_ it.

She always invites him places, so he always invites _her_ places, too. Any time he needs to go shopping. Any time he wants to grab a coffee or something from some fast food place. He just likes spending time with her.

He even puts up with Arya Stark’s terrifying distrust of him for a whole _week_ when Brienne is tasked with bringing her to soccer practice. Catelyn is apparently visiting her father and Ned is busy chauffeuring Bran and Rickon to their various activities, so Brienne takes the responsibility, because she’s fucking perfect.

“What are you even still _doing_ here?” Arya asks one day, near the end of the week. “You just sit around and mope until she’s ready to go. It _must_ be boring, but you’ve done it every day. Brienne says I’m not allowed to ask you to kick the ball around because of your cast, which makes _no_ sense, but what’s the point of you otherwise?”

“Not much of one, I’ll admit,” Jaime sighs. He’s really beginning to feel the loss of his right hand, lately. Just a few more weeks to go before the cast comes off, but it’s starting to get to him. And Arya’s right: it makes no sense. His doctor’s just overcautious. He won’t even be _using_ his arm. That’s the whole point of soccer. Arya’s coach is a fairly useless man who spends most of his practice focusing his instruction on his own two sons, so Brienne is helping some of the other kids with a few easy drills, and all her attention is on them. “Well, you didn’t ask me, so she can’t get mad at you for it. Let’s kick the ball around and see how long it takes her to notice.”

It turns out to be roughly ten seconds, because he has to twist violently out of the way of an expertly aimed ball that would have hit him square in the cast.

“Arya!” Brienne barks from across the field. Arya laughs, smile pointed and falsely innocent.

“Not my fault if he can’t get out of the way,” she says back. “And he _begged_ me to.”

“Jaime, you know you can’t,” Brienne scolds, and Jaime glares at Arya, who trots off to get the ball, flashing another savage smile at him over her shoulder.

Then, this one time, Jaime asks Brienne over to his house to watch a movie, and it’s the most torturous part of all of it. He’s so excited about the fact that she agrees to come over, and so excited about the fact that his father and Cersei are both out of town and won’t be able to make it horrible, that he forgets to freak out about it until she’s actually _there_ and it’s too late to figure out what the hell you’re supposed to do when a girl’s in your house, on your couch, and you like her. He basically acts like a butler, asking her if she wants anything, making sure she’s comfortable. But it’s _Brienne_ , so of course she doesn’t want anything. And of course she’s just as soft and funny and sweet as she always is. They make fun of the stupid movie together, sitting side-by-side on the couch in the dark, and it’s wonderful, but it still doesn’t tell Jaime _anything_.

 

* * *

 

“What’s going on between you?” Cersei asks one day. She passed him in the upstairs hallway, on the way to take a shower. She’s holding a change of clothes to her chest, clutching at them like they’re keeping her grounded. Jaime knows exactly who she means, but he’s startled and nervous and doesn’t want to answer.

“Why does it matter to you so much?” he asks instead. Cersei’s eyes are piercing. They see everything.

“You’re still angry, then,” she says.

“I still don’t know if I can trust you,” he says, correcting her as gently as he can. Cersei looks wounded at that, and he says, “I don’t want her getting hurt again just because you’re feeling petty.”

“ _Petty_ ,” Cersei says.

“What else would you call it?”

She deflates a little, and she leans back against the wall. He leans against the opposite one, so they’re facing each other. She looks at him carefully.

“This is important to you,” she says.

“It is.”

“This is something you won’t bend on.”

“I won’t.”

“So it’s conditional,” she says. Ever since they learned what _unconditional_ meant, they’ve said it often. Unconditional. They would love each other no matter what.

“It isn’t,” he argues softly. “I’ll still love you even if you treat me like shit for the rest of our lives. I’ll still love you even if you keep hurting every friend I try to make. Even if you scare all of them off, I’ll love you. I just won’t like you very much.”

Cersei nods, slowly. There is something hateful behind her eyes, but she understands. She is used to having every bit of him. Every stupid, twisted, broken part of him has been with her and for her since they were children. First Tyrion came between them, as one grew to loathe him and the other grew to love him, and now there is Brienne.

“I understand,” she says.

“Do you?” he asks.

“I’ll love you even if you don’t like me very much,” she whispers. “But I’d rather you like me, too.”

She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t hug him. She doesn’t cry. She only looks at him for long enough to see that he understands that this is a truce, and then she heads into the bathroom.

It isn’t an apology, but it’s Cersei. It doesn’t _need_ to be.

 

* * *

 

It’s not long after that conversation that he remembers something vital, and he has to give up on all his hopeless little dreams of seeing Brienne’s shoulder and spotting the sword. Because Cersei has _seen_ Brienne’s soulmark. She mentioned it once, earlier in the year. That slumber party at Sansa Stark’s house. That was what started the whole horrible vendetta, even before Cersei got annoyed because of the museum trip and the new friendship that Jaime wasn’t supposed to have. Cersei was so disbelieving that Brienne Tarth could have a soulmark when Cersei’s skin was still blank. It made her angry, and it made her cruel, and Jaime had forgotten all about it.

Cersei has seen Brienne’s soulmark. She has also seen _Jaime’s_.

He’s in the car with her, in the morning on the way to school, when he realizes, and he turns and looks at her. He watches her drive and snipe at Tyrion, who’s humming something annoying under his breath and pissing her off.

He opens his mouth to ask, but he closes it again.

No, she would have said. If the soulmarks matched, she would have said. She wouldn’t keep something like that from him. Not from _him_. Her twin. Her best friend.

So Brienne isn’t his soulmate. It doesn’t matter. How _can_ it matter, when he likes her so much?

When he kisses her cheek, she blushes. When he tells jokes, she laughs. When he pops up at her locker, she smiles, and her blue eyes light up. She blooms every time she sees him. She reacts to him. She is _happy_ with him, and she’s happy to see him, and he cares so much about her. Even if it’s only ever this, he’s happy. But he wants.

 

* * *

 

_It’s been literal weeks, bottom bitch_ , Margaery texts him one day. _Are you gonna ask her to formal or what???_

Jaime groans and throws his phone down on his bed. Tyrion arches an eyebrow and picks it up.

“You should have a password on this,” he reminds Jaime. He reads the text and laughs. “Ah, Margaery Tyrell. Such a charmer. It’s a good question.”

“I’m not asking Brienne to formal.”

“Why _not_?”

“Because I’m an idiot.”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“I’m that, too.”

“You’re doing that coward thing again.”

“No, I’m doing that ‘I don’t want to make things weird with Brienne’ thing. I have very seriously thought about this. For, like, every night for the past two weeks. What if she says no?”

“Is that a serious question?” Tyrion asks.

“She could say no.”

“Because so many boys are lining up to ask Brienne Tarth to the dance.”

Jaime swivels abruptly in his chair and frowns at his little brother.

“Hey,” he says.

“Jaime. I know you like the girl, but let’s call things what they are. I’m a dwarf. Cersei is a bitch. Brienne Tarth is ugly.”

“She _isn’t_.”

“Beauty is subjective, and in the eye of the beholder, and blah blah blah, yes, very true. But in the eyes of most of the world, Jaime, and especially of the shallow fools at our school, Brienne Tarth is ugly. There are no boys like you lining up to ask Brienne Tarth to the dance. There is only you, uselessly pining away in your bedroom, thinking absurd thoughts about how this girl might reject _you_. Even if she for some reason finds you as improbably hideous as you find her improbably pretty, she’s not going to turn you down. She’s your friend, Jaime. She’ll say yes. She’ll go to the dance with you.”

Jaime sighs, because Tyrion is right. No, Brienne wouldn’t turn him down, and that might be even worse. She would be happy and polite and say yes because he asked, and he would have to deal with going to a potentially very romantic dance with a girl who’s making him re-evaluate the concept of _soulmates_. Something that has been important to him since he was eight years old. He’s not sure if the rejection or the casual, friendly acceptance would feel worse.

“Margaery has texted you a picture of Brienne’s dress, just in case you stop being a coward,” Tyrion updates him. “It’s blue. It looks quite good on her, too. I’ll just save this to your gallery. Do you already have a creepy folder filled with pictures of her, or should I create one for you?”

Jaime glares at Tyrion, and Tyrion smiles back.

 

* * *

 

There is, after that, a sort of half-assed plan to ask her. Casually, though, so she won’t get freaked out or won’t feel like she _has_ to accept.

Really, it’s not so much a _plan_ as it is an awareness that if the conditions are right, he’ll just trip over himself and eventually speak enough words in a row that he’ll end up asking her. It’s how basically every other aspect of their friendship has worked so far, so he has no reason to think this will be any different.

Except then they’re standing in the hall just after school, talking. Or, well, Jaime is talking, while Brienne listens and occasionally makes affirmative noises. But then Sansa runs up, sobbing and half-hysterical, talking about Theon and Ramsay, and it’s all quite difficult to piece together. The gist of it is that Sansa’s creepy new boyfriend has been abusing her, and Theon Greyjoy decided to be a hero and follow Ramsay home to take revenge, and Brienne wants to go follow him to lend support, but Theon drove her to school today, so she doesn’t have a car.

“I can get you a car,” Jaime says.

 

* * *

 

Cersei is in the gym, using her fakest, most honey-sweet voice as she talks to some of the younger girls on the squad. They lap it up, because they believe it. Not even the bet was enough to ruin Cersei’s reputation entirely with the girls who should know her best. She’s a master at manipulating things to her favor. He loathes it about her, but he admires it, too.

She spots him entering the gym, and she frowns at him. She takes in his appearance. Even despite the oddness between them lately, the rift that still has yet to fully heal, she still knows how to read him. She dismisses the girls and heads over.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“We need a ride.”

“Tyrion?”

“Sansa.” He sets his jaw in a firm line. “And Brienne. Sansa’s boyfriend has been hurting her. She let it slip to Greyjoy, and he’s gone to collect his _iron price_.”

“Gods, don’t remind me. Ugh. _Greyjoys._ At least if he’s pissed off about the abuse, we know he’s not another fucking Euron.” Cersei spits the words, and Jaime feels his smile cut sharply across his face. That had been a revenge taken together, after Euron proved to be a less-than-worthy suitor for his sister. Euron had been too embarrassed to admit to the beating he took from the two of them. He just quietly graduated last year with bruises on his face and some story about a fight club. Cersei looks at Jaime carefully. “I’ll get my keys. Meet me out front”

“Thank you, Cersei,” he says. She gives him another long look.

“Of course,” she says.

It does not fix everything. There is still so much that festers between them. But it is a start.

 

* * *

 

Cersei isn’t a very careful driver at the best of times, and she’s positively reckless now, bombing down Ramsay’s street. Jaime has spent most of the ride wondering if his cast will make a good enough clobbering weapon, though with Jon and Brienne both in the back seat and both ready to fight, Jaime has a feeling he won’t even get a chance. Too bad they couldn’t get a hold of Robb before they set off; it could have been a _real_ party.

He can practically feel Brienne’s warning glare at the back of his head. She won’t like it if he goes and jumps into another fight, even if this one isn’t necessarily for her.

Cersei pulls sharply into Ramsay’s driveway. And there, right in front of them, the fight continues. Well, _fight_ might be generous. Theon is on the ground. Ramsay looks wild over him. Animalistic. As everyone gets out of the car, Ramsay looks at them as if they’ve all decided to stop by for a pleasant afternoon tea. His eyes settle on Brienne, and Jaime feels a kind of bristling defensiveness for only a moment.

Then it’s like: _I kind of_ hope _he tries to fight Brienne. She’ll flatten him_.

But Sansa runs forward, and Ramsay shoves her hard enough to send her falling, and Jon turns into some small, angry animal. Like a mongoose. Or a very angry Pomeranian. Cersei gapes at Jaime with naked joy on her face just at the surprise of it all. Also maybe at the savagery. Cersei _does_ love to watch a good beatdown as long as the beatdown is deserved.

Jon is a calm kid, normally. Calm and quiet and difficult to read. Tyrion says he’s smarter than he acts, and if Tyrion says it, then Jaime thinks it’s probably true. But Jon is all instinct, now, punching Ramsay. And punching him. And punching him. Ramsay doesn’t even get a chance to _try_ to fight back.

Brienne judges when Ramsay has taken enough hits, and she pulls Jon off him, her arms wrapped around Jon from behind as she literally lifts him like a child throwing a tantrum and sets him off to the side. Sansa breaks the spell entirely by running to her cousin and throwing her arms around him. Jon blinks, wills himself back to the world of the living, and returns the embrace.

Then Sansa falls to her knees and starts to prettily weep over Theon, too. Jaime feels very bad for her, even though she _has_ spent the past few weeks bullying him alongside Margaery over his failure to make any meaningful progress with Brienne. He feels bad, but _gods_ , it’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?

Brienne follows Sansa to Theon’s side, crouching down across from him, her back to Jaime. She pulls her sweatshirt over her head, and Jaime spares an annoyed thought to the fact that she’s going to ruin it if she’s using it to mop up Theon’s blood. That’s his favorite sweatshirt on her. It’s pale blue and pretty, and…

She is wearing nothing but a tank top under that sweatshirt. Exciting stuff in any context, really, but her sword. His sword. _Their_ sword. It’s there, on her back, exactly where it should be. It’s nearly hidden by one strap of the tank, but that’s _it_.

His sword. His soulmate. He was _right_. Those echoes of future love in his chest stir and stir until it’s like a whirlpool inside him. He was right about something for once in his fucking life, and it was _this_. The one thing he had resigned himself to doing without. It had stopped mattering, in a sense, because how could his soulmate possibly matter when they weren’t _Brienne_. But _now_ , now it is allowed to matter again, and suddenly it means everything, because Brienne Tarth is his fucking soulmate, and he _knew it_.

Except then the joy stutters. Grinds itself down. A kind of sharp, shocked hurt that wiggles through him and leaves him feeling decidedly breathless.

It sinks in quickly, this time. This is nothing like the cafeteria. He does not deny or hope to be wrong or pray that he has misunderstood.

No, this is immediate.

He turns his eyes away from the sword on Brienne’s back as she continues to help Theon, being all noble and wonderful and his soulmate. His eyes find Cersei’s. She’s already watching him, and her face has gone slightly pale, and her mouth is working as if she is trying to think of the words to say to make this all right.

His sister. His _twin_. Even after everything, even after the bet and the fight and her inadequate apologies, he still knew that she loved him. He knew that her worst deeds were, somehow, deeply repressed actions of jealousy. Wanting Jaime’s attention. Wanting Jaime’s adoration. Nothing like what Tywin feared, but something twisted all the same, because the idea of Jaime living a separate life from her had always been intolerable to her, even if she had been allowed to date and make friends that were not _him_.

He had gone along with it. He had placated her at every opportunity. He was more a part of her than he had ever been a whole, and now he realizes that she never had any intention of affording him even _close_ to the same courtesy.

As he stares at Cersei, his thoughts must flit over his face, because she looks at turns hurt, terrified, and defiant. He isn’t surprised when it’s defiance that wins above all; it always does, with her.

“You…” he starts, though he never has any further words, even in the back of his mind, and he lets the potential of that unspoken sentence trail off into nothing. _You_. You did this. You hid this from me. You knew this was important to me, and you _actively sabotaged it_.

And that’s the other thing that’s just barely beginning to occur to him. Cersei only targeted Brienne with her laser focus _after_ she knew. She only dragged Jaime into it _after she knew_. Bad enough to know and keep quiet. Bad enough to hide this from him. But all this time, he’s been hurting his soulmate and being cruel to his soulmate, and Cersei knew. She encouraged it. She _wanted_ it. She wanted this fucking miracle to be so blackened and warped by his own dickishness that even if he _did_ find out, he and Brienne would loathe the sight of each other. It was only an accident that prevented it. Only Selmy partnering them together on a project. Otherwise, he would have continued being an asshole to her. He wouldn’t have felt the need to stop. Cersei’s plan would have worked.

She wanted to _ruin_ it. She wanted to take this thing that has always been important to him, and she wanted to destroy it beyond repair. And why? For what reason? Just because it was something he had for _himself_? Jaime has had a lot of hurts in his life, but nothing has ever hurt so badly as this.

“ _Jaime_ ,” Brienne says, her voice urgent, drawing his attention. She’s standing in front of him, suddenly. “Can you hand me my phone from the backseat? We need to call an ambulance.”

“I’ll call,” Cersei says. She does. Jaime can’t look at either of them. Every time he ever laughed in Brienne’s face, every time he ever told her that she was ugly or graceless or mannish, it all whirls around in his mind. It was his choice to go along with it. It was his choice to say those words. But Cersei _knew_. Cersei did it on _purpose_. He will gladly fall on his own sword of self-loathing, blame himself for the rest of his life if he has to for insulting Brienne the way he used to, but he can no longer avoid blaming Cersei alongside him. It was purposeful and terrible and cruel, what she did. She has always been cruel to people she disdains, but _this_. She turned her purposeful cruelty on _him_.

_Just like she always has to Tyrion_ , he reminds himself. _You thought you were too special to warrant it. Turns out you were just too stupid to see it._

“Jaime,” Brienne says, as Cersei rattles off information to the dispatcher. Brienne steps closer to him, and she puts her hand gently on his arm. So gently, and it still startles him, and he meets her big blue eyes at last. They’re so worried for him. “Are you all right?”

It’s too much. It’s _too much_. They were friends only this morning, but now they’re soulmates, and he has never felt less like he deserves her kindness. That force behind her eyes that gives even wretches like him second and third and fourth chances that they don’t deserve. He needs to tell her. He needs to apologize again. He needs to say _something_ , but he can’t, and he only nods, and then Sansa calls her back over and Brienne turns away with another long look that sears into him.

 

* * *

 

Jaime performs the part that’s expected of him when the police show up. He uses his Lannister Voice to its full potential. Cersei took charge and made sure that the Starklings all had their stories straight, and together the twins manage to make everything seem very fair and not like a one-sided beatdown by a frenzied boy protecting his cousin.

His mind is still a torrent of confused, wounded betrayal, but Jaime has always been good at putting on a public face when he has to. He becomes Tywin’s Heir, and he makes sure that the police have no reason to look too closely at Jon.

The two EMTs Jaime remembers from the aftermath of the cafeteria fight come to take Theon away, and Jaime uses the opportunity to put some distance between himself and his sister and Brienne, who are standing too close together. He shows them his cast and tells them about the surgeries. Davos gives him a fatherly pat on the shoulder, and Mel gives him a quick hug.

“You’ve given the other boys bad ideas, apparently,” she says. “There are better ways to impress the girls.”

Sansa’s still weeping too loud to hear that, but Theon glares at Mel, and Jaime laughs a strangled laugh that he bites off immediately when he sees Brienne following him.

“I’ll meet you at the hospital,” Sansa is saying to Theon, as if she’s watching him go off to war. “We’ll all go. Won’t we, Brienne?”

“Cersei’s offered to drive us,” Brienne says. Sansa looks gratefully over at Cersei, but Jaime _can’t_.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t look at her when they get back into the car. He doesn’t look at her when they pull up to the hospital. He allows Jon and Sansa and Brienne to all stumble out and head for the doors, and then he doesn’t look at his sister as he says, “just…wait a minute” and gets out to follow.

He walks with Brienne to the door, and he allows the other two to go in, but he and Brienne stop just outside.

“Is everything okay?” Brienne asks. She looks back towards Cersei, and Jaime feels like laughing. He shakes his head.

“She…” he starts. He wants to tell her the whole thing, immediately, because it’s Brienne, and she’s his soulmate, and over the past few weeks she has become the person he can tell almost anything to, and his instincts to talk to her about this are so strong. “Not now. I can’t…shit.” He runs his fingers through his hair as he tries to collect his thoughts. “I need to go. I’ll, um. I’ll text you later?”

Brienne is looking at him with pity, like he’s visibly injured, and maybe he is. Maybe it’s obvious. She doesn’t argue, though, and she turns to go into the hospital. The tank top strap is still blocking part of the sword, but it’s _there_ , and it’s so close.

“Wait,” he says, darting forward. He starts pulling off his hoodie. It’s not as easy as it usually is, because of his stupid cast and because his only good hand is all shaky and clumsy with the adrenaline of the past few hours. Then he finally gets it off, and he holds it open, imagining this very romantic moment where he helps her into his hoodie.

Standing outside a hospital, while he’s clumsy from his cast, while his twin sister watches from the curb. So maybe it’s not high romance, but it’s what he’s got to work with.

Except this is Brienne, so she very practically tries to just take the hoodie from him and put it on herself. He steps out of her reach and looks at her pointedly, and she sighs and allows him to help her.

“You ask me to write on your cast, and I write some excellent advice, and you _never_ listen to it,” she says. Jaime uses the opportunity of being so close to lean in and look at the sword. He’s never seen his own sword with his naked eyes before. Never seen it through anything but the glass of the mirror.

“ _Stop trying to be chivalrous, bro_ ,” he quotes to her, imitating her. As he helps her left arm into the hoodie, he brushes his thumb along the grip of the sword. Touching it. A thrill goes through him. It’s real. It’s _real_. There is no doubt. It is not just _a_ sword. It is _his_ sword. It’s _her_. It has always been her. Ever since he was eight years old, he has been marked for her. She turns to face him, and he cannot stop smiling. “It was good advice,” he manages to say. “Just one problem.”

“And what’s that?” Brienne asks. She pulls his hoodie tighter around her, and Jaime feels a pleasant hum of possessiveness to see it.

“I’m not _trying_ to be chivalrous,” he jokes. “I _am_ being chivalrous.”

“You’re the worst,” Brienne tells him, without real heat, and he can feel his smile growing. There are so many things he’s going to have to work out because of today’s revelations. He knows that it isn’t going to be easy. But no matter what, there’s this. There’s her.

“Pretty sure that was Ramsay,” he points out giddily. “Before Jon made him much more silent and bearable and closer to dead.”

Brienne moves forward so suddenly that it startles him, and he thinks she’s going to hug him, which would be lovely enough. But she kisses him, on the cheek, just the same way he always does to her. Her lips are soft against his skin, and even his _breath_ is shaking. She lingers.

She pulls back, and she’s only half looking at him. She’s gone all blotchy and red, the way she does, and Jaime feels as if his heart will beat straight out of his chest.

“Thank you, Jaime,” she says, and then she turns and walks away, leaving him speechless behind her.


	6. I Panicked and Kissed You. Some Romance.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The spring formal happens. Jaime is, naturally, a mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so everyone is aware, every time i use the word "deserve" or some variant in this chapter, it's probably me being bitter about the ending and about the self-loathing bullshit they had to pull to try and half-ass Jaime's ending into making character sense beyond "jaime had to go back for plot reasons"
> 
> which, like, on another note, I totally sympathize with just wanting something to work for plot reasons, but I'm not being paid money to write the shit I write, so I'm allowed to do it. They should, uh, be better at their jobs, maybe.

When Jaime gets back in the car, and Cersei pulls out of the hospital parking lot, there is silence. There is silence only because Jaime has no idea what to say. He wishes he could have made this discovery alone. He needs infinitely more time to process it. But Cersei saw everything, and she has seen every reaction written on his face. She is wary, now, driving. She is fearful. She keeps looking at him, and he has no idea what to say to her yet, so he just looks out his window as the sun sets to darkness, and he keeps the silence alive.

Cersei is far more careful pulling into their own driveway than she was pulling into Ramsay’s. She parks. She turns the key, and she turns off the car.

Silence, and darkness, and Jaime sighs.

He can _feel_ the tension that blooms in Cersei at his sigh. They have always been so aware of each other. Twins. _Best friends_.

“Why did you do it?” he asks.

“Is there anything I can say that would make this less painful for you?” Cersei asks. She asks with a detached kind of curiosity, as if none of this matters to her. He knows that isn’t true, but he knows that it’s the part she will play if it will allow her to save face.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Why don’t you try me?”

Cersei sighs, and her hands fidget on the wheel, tightening and releasing and tightening again.

“I got my soulmark a few weeks ago,” she says. “It’s an ugly thing, but I’m fond of it. The snarling face of a lion with a mane that looks like flames. Like the sun. It’s late to get one. I’m not sure what it says about me.”

“If you’re looking for reassurance, this isn’t the time,” Jaime says, delicately, and Cersei laughs. It’s a laugh he’s well acquainted with, like everything else about her; she’s fighting back tears, and he knows that she will not allow them to fall.

“I’m not,” she says. “I can’t offer you the tidy excuse you want, Jaime. I know there aren’t any that will fix this. And the explanation…I don’t know. Pick the worst reason you can think of, if it will make you feel better. It’s probably that one.”

“The worst reason I can think of is that you don’t love me at all, and you wanted me to suffer.”

Her face turns to his, her brow furrowing, incredulous.

“You know it isn’t that.”

“Then I guess you’re going to have to tell me.”

Cersei closes her eyes, and she bites her lips together, and she thinks. The car is still silent. In front of them, in the house, Jaime can see their father pacing in his office, talking on the phone.

“Isn’t it obvious that I was jealous? Brienne Tarth got to have _you_ , while I was fated for no one. I was angry. She didn’t know you. She had barely ever spoken to you. If she saw any part of you, it was the veneer that every girl in school sees. The handsome boy. The football player. _Jaime Lannister_ , the shiny outside parts that father has tried to shape into an ideal, empty image. Nothing beyond that. _You_ were fated for the ugliest girl in school, and I knew she would feel like she had been granted a prize.”

“So you were determined to, what, taint her winnings?”

“I was determined to make her _see_ you,” Cersei sneers. “You as _I_ knew you. Cruel and witty and sarcastic and selfish. Let her know the whole of the package she was being gifted. Funny and inventive and occasionally so clever it shocks me, because you spend _so_ much time trying to convince yourself you aren’t. You are not some pretty, vacant thing. You are my mirror, my twin, and I know you.” She sighs, and she clutches the steering wheel again. “I knew you.” Quieter, then. “Thought I knew you.”

“Is that really what you thought of me? That everything good in me was falseness and it was only the bad that was real?”

“ _Bad._ That’s a pathetic word for it. I never thought you were _bad._ I thought you were you, and I loved you for it. I thought I understood every aspect of you. How was I supposed to know otherwise? You showed me what I wanted to see. Tyrion was right. Every time he said that. I thought he was insane. I thought he was petty and jealous, but it was me, all along. Our brother, always standing up for you. Telling me that you were the best of us. I didn’t listen. The _universe_ tried to scream it at me, but I didn’t listen. _Not Jaime_ , I thought. _He’s mine_.” She scoffs, and she shakes her head. The gold in her hair catches on the light from the front porch, and Jaime is suddenly terrified to leave the car, because he has this feeling in his chest. This certainty that things are never going to be the same between them after this conversation. They have already passed the tipping point, and he knows it, but this conversation is the last part of what used to be real.

“I wanted to make you happy,” he forces himself to say. “That was the only thing I cared about.”

“And then it wasn’t,” Cersei finishes.

“It isn’t as if I stopped caring about it. I still want to- to make you happy. But the cost got higher.”

“Yes, I know it did.”

“You knew how much I cared about my soulmark. You knew it was important to me. _How_ could you…”

“What excuse will make you happy? That I didn’t think Brienne Tarth was good enough for you? Or that I didn’t want to lose you to some girl who didn’t know you as I thought you truly were? If you helped me hurt her, if you hurt her enough, I thought maybe she wouldn’t want you anyway, and the whole thing would just…not matter. If you want me to grovel, I won’t. It wouldn’t do either of us any good, and I doubt I would much mean it, anyway. I didn’t mean for you to ever find out. My plan was to _never_ tell you, and I know that’s not something you’ll easily forgive.”

“You meant for me to spend my life _alone_.”

Cersei doesn’t deny the accusation. She frowns at him, but she doesn’t deny it.

“I wanted things to continue on the way they’ve always been,” she admits. “But I was blind to the truth of it, anyway. We were never truly one person.”

“Of _course_ we aren’t.”

“It was a mummer’s farce even before, and now it’s just a fucking…idiotic tragedy.”

“It’s not a very good one,” Jaime admits.

“Like that one we saw in theaters. I don’t remember what it was called. Tyrion pretended to snore through all the sappy bits.”

“I remember. Lots of blood and tears over nothing very interesting.”

“I never meant for you to be hurt,” Cersei says, looking at his cast. “And I understand that you may not forgive me.”

“It’s unconditional, Cersei,” he reminds her, and she truly shocks him, then, her face crumpling as she looks away. She takes her hands off the steering wheel to wipe at her eyes.

“Still?” she asks, and despite her best efforts, her voice shakes.

“Still,” he answers. There is a lump rising in his throat, too. Tyrion would laugh himself to death if he saw them now.

“I don’t see how you could. I don’t see why you would want to.”

“I don’t either, sometimes. I can’t forgive you yet, but I will love you anyway.”

Cersei nods. She opens the car door, and Jaime opens his. When they head towards the house, she looks at him, and he looks back at her, and the feeling settles within him. Everything has changed. It’s not ever going to go back to the way it was between them. But maybe that doesn’t have to be such a scary thing.

 

* * *

 

He wants to tell Tyrion everything. He wants to tell _everyone_ everything. He wants to ask advice from a million people, but he doesn’t. He takes an angry nap that nearly brings him all the way through dinner. Cersei is wary at the table, but Jaime is perfectly polite, and she mirrors him. She tells Tywin about the fight at Ramsay’s house, because she knows that someone will likely tell their father about it, considering how many cops were there. She makes both of them sound quite noble, and Tywin is reluctantly impressed, but he says little about it. Tyrion, later, is annoyed that he wasn’t invited, and confused when Cersei actually laughs at a joke he makes about being perfectly sized to take on all of Ramsay’s most vulnerable areas.

“What’s gotten into her?” he asks, once she’s left the room.

“I wish I knew,” Jaime mutters. Really, he thinks Cersei feels unburdened. Keeping that selfish secret inside had weighed on her, and now it’s out, with all its consequences, both good and bad.

 

* * *

 

He tries to work on his homework for a while, but it doesn’t go very well. He checks every social media site at least twice. He watches an episode of some comedy and later realizes that he doesn’t even remember what show it was.

It’s just that there’s so much he wants to say to all of them. To Brienne, and to Cersei, and to his father and Tyrion, too. Words that have been building for a long time, but he doesn’t know how to say them. And Cersei. She tried to explain herself. She tried to make it make some sense to him. But it wasn’t good enough. It still hurts, and he’s not sure he _could_ make himself talk about it, but he knows that if he was going to, it would be to Brienne. But he has already ruined so much of their early friendship with his own self-serving nature and his irritating tendency to bend to his sister’s will. He’s not going to blurt to Brienne that she’s his soulmate just because he’s upset about Cersei.

No, she deserves better than that. She deserves better than _him_ , but if he’s going to concede that the universe has a point, then he’s going to do his very best to live up to what he wants her to have.

Eventually calling her isn’t really a conscious choice. He has this sort of half-assed thought that he could call and ask about Theon. Never mind that he’s never called her before. The injury of a mutual almost-friend is reason enough to call someone for the first time, right?

He has made the call before he has time to talk himself out of it, and then the phone is ringing. It rings several times, and Jaime has time to work himself into a frenzy of thinking that maybe she’s gone to bed, or maybe it’s deeply strange that he has called, and she has decided not to pick up.

But then she answers, her voice deep and low and lovely, and she sounds so fucking casual that it makes him curse himself for being such an idiot, for stressing out about this simple thing.

“Hey,” she says.

He manages to speak, finally, saying, “Brienne, hi” in a voice that sounds distant and confused and irritated at once. So, like, the three worst things.

“Did you not mean to call me?” she asks.

“What? No. I meant to.”

“Oh. You just sounded…surprised.”

“Did I?” He finds he has suddenly forgotten how he normally talks to her. It’s not usually this difficult, is it? They’re friends. Usually, he’s the one doing all the talking. But that’s a little scary now, because he can’t stop thinking about her soulmark. _Their_ soulmark. He’s just going to ramble until it all comes out, isn’t he? He’s just going to blurt the whole thing because he’s not used to keeping his words inside when he’s around her.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“What? Yes. I’m fine. Are you? I didn’t ask, earlier. Wait, how’s Theon? That’s why I was calling. How is he?”

“Theon’s going to be fine. He’ll be going home tomorrow. Nothing too serious.”

“That’s good. That’s, um, good news. And Sansa?”

“She’s good! She’s…she feels quite guilty about everything, but she’s glad. I think she didn’t really know what to do when Ramsay started hitting her. We’re lucky Theon was able to get through to her before it got worse.”

“Yes. And lucky Jon beat the absolute shit out of that little bastard,” Jaime says. Brienne laughs, low and quiet, and it sends a pleasant little thrill through Jaime to hear it. He can hear movement, like she’s making herself comfortable, and now he’s forced to imagine her in bed. He thinks of her as he last saw her, wearing his hoodie, looking soft and shaken and kissing him on the cheek. Gods, what if she’s still wearing it? He can’t decide if he’d like it better if she was wearing _that_ , or something less. He imagines she sleeps in a tank top and shorts. That seems very Brienne. Her legs would look _endless_.

“Are you all right?” she asks. The softness in her voice holds a smile in it. He has never cared so much about someone that it physically pains him, but he feels an ache in his stomach now just at the thought of her. That conversation with Cersei, all its terror and the nervousness for the future that it made him feel, it fades slowly with Brienne’s breathing in his ear.

“I’m perfect,” he says, and she makes a snorting sound that is simply adorable.

“How silly of me to ask,” she drawls. “You just seem…quiet. Not like yourself.”

“I’m…I’m just thinking about what happened today.”

“It was nice of Cersei to drive us,” she offers, and Jaime feels an embarrassing, telling hitch in his breath as the conversation in the car comes back to him. Flooding him, along with everything else. Cersei’s glittering grin every time she encouraged Jaime to insult Brienne. Brienne’s blank expression. The hurt he was too stupid to see behind her eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about Cersei,” he says.

“I noticed you seemed upset with her earlier. Did she do something?”

Jaime laughs, but it’s brittle and irritated. She’s clearly worried about him, and even _that_ amount of care is so much more than he deserves to have from her, and he loathes himself for craving more of it.

“She did,” he says.

“Do you want to tell me about it? I’m told I’m a good listener.”

“Of course you’re a good listener, but…I don’t want to talk about it like _this_. On the phone. I can’t…I suppose I can just tell you the basics. No details.”

“Whatever helps, Jaime.”

“Stop being so fucking…noble. And good. And nice. I’m trying to be annoyed at my sister, and you’re making my mood better.” Brienne laughs, a slightly toned-down version of the loud laugh that he likes so much. Jaime cannot help the reflexive laugh alongside her, though it fades quickly, because everything is weighing on him. Crushing him. He’s just found out that the girl he has a massive crush on is also his soulmate. It should be a happy occasion. “We had a difficult conversation,” he admits.

He doesn’t tell her everything. He tells her only the broadest strokes: Cersei lied to him. Cersei refused to apologize in any sort of uncomplicated way and instead offered up excuses and justifications that weren’t nearly good enough.

“You can stay mad about it as long as you want,” Brienne says, once he’s managed. “I mean, even if you _do_ forgive her. You don’t have to completely forget what she did.”

That strikes a cord, and he tries not to sound too desperate, but he knows he fails.

“Are _you_ still mad at me?”

“About what?”

“All the things I said to you. All the shit I pulled with Cersei. I was _horrible_ to you. I keep looking back on it, and I just… _fuck_. How could you be my…” _soulmate. It isn’t fair to you. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone, really, but_ you _?_ “…how can you even be _friends_ with me after that? The thing in the library…”

Being kind to her. Friendly to her. Making her think that he had changed and then showing her viciously that he had not. How could she forgive something like that?

“I _have_ forgiven you,” she says, after a pause that threatens to shatter Jaime’s heart completely. “I do still get angry when I think about the things you said. Hurt, too, I suppose. But not in a way that makes it linger. It would be different if you’d _kept_ saying those things to me. I don’t think I would have trusted you enough to forgive you. But you stopped, and you changed. The trust I have for you now, you’ve earned it. I think those are good standards to set. If Cersei doesn’t stop hurting to you, or lying to you, I don’t think you should feel obligated to trust her. But it might be different for you than it was for me. I don’t have a twin.”

“Yeah, lucky you,” Jaime sighs, though there’s no real heat behind it. And anyway, she _does_ have a twin. She just doesn’t know about it yet. A twin to her sword. A second half to her soul. “You really _are_ a good listener.”

“I told you.”

“I’m not surprised. You’re good at everything. I hope you realize it’s the most annoying thing about you. Are you going to the dance?”

The change of subject seems to surprise her almost as much as it surprised him.

“What?” she asks.

“The spring formal. Are you going?”

“Yes. I’m going.”

He could ask her. Right now, he could ask her.

But…on the phone? And after everything that has happened today? He’s not exactly smooth and romantic at his best, and this certainly wouldn’t be his best. If he asks her now, she might think he’s just asking as a distraction, or because of the weirdness with Cersei, and he doesn’t want that.

“Oh, good,” he says. More awkwardly, maybe, than anyone has ever said anything.

“I always go with Robb,” she says, and of course he remembers that now. Remembers Cersei glaring at the two of them when they’d showed up last year at some dance, Brienne towering over the curly-haired Stark kid. Neither of them had seemed to mind, though Cersei had pointed out how perfectly ridiculous they looked. Brienne continues, “and…the others.”

“Well, that’s good,” Jaime says. That settles it, then. It’s actually quite a bit of pressure off. He’ll see her at the dance, but he doesn’t have to ask her. And maybe it’ll be the right time to tell her. He has some time to figure it out. “I should go.”

“Oh, um, okay. Seriously, thank you again for getting your sister to…”

“It was nothing,” he says. “Just…anything. For you. Um…good night.”

He hangs up, and he feels like a total fucking fool.

 

* * *

 

He spends the next few days utterly freaking out. Jaime has never been a very restful person, especially with his emotions. He swings sharply from one feeling to the next, and the only thing he’s really good at is hiding them behind a sardonic smirk and a few well-placed barbs. But this thing with Brienne – with his _soulmate_ – has unmoored him completely.

He holds the cards now, because he has the knowledge, and he isn’t sure what to do about it. Because there is a simple path laid forward for him: tell her. Tell her everything. Tell her how he feels about her and tell her about the soulmark. And if he asked for advice from literally anyone, they would tell him that that is exactly what he should do.

But he’ll think about doing it. Or imagine doing it. Or turn to her in school and almost _start_ to do it, but then he’ll stop himself. Because he’ll think about the start again. He’ll think about Cersei, and about the things he said, and he’ll think about Brienne. He’ll imagine being confronted by someone who loves her. Robb, maybe, or Sansa, or Brienne’s father. And they’ll ask him _what exactly do you think Brienne deserves_? And of course he’ll answer that she deserves _everything_ good in the world. So how exactly is he supposed to tell her something that will tie her to _him_. Everything good in the world, and _he’s_ the dubious gift the universe has given her.

It’s not like he thinks he’s going to keep it a secret forever. He never plans to take it to his grave, or anything. But it hurts him to think about it. Making it explicit. Grasping at something he wants so badly, even though he knows he hasn’t earned a right to it. What does a good person do when they’re faced with something like this? If Brienne was in his place, what would she do?

He can tell that Brienne knows _something_ is up, but she doesn’t pry. Because, again, Brienne is a good person, and she probably thinks that he’s still upset about whatever happened with Cersei, and she’s letting him figure it out on his own. Tyrion knows something is up, too. He keeps giving Jaime all these little glances that make Jaime a bit paranoid. Like, did Cersei tell him? He can’t think of anything less likely, but there’s something so calculating in Tyrion’s gaze.

 

* * *

 

And then it’s the day of the dance, and he still hasn’t told her.

 

* * *

 

“Drink.”

Jaime turns, and Tyrion is behind him.

“I thought you went inside,” Jaime says.

Tyrion arches an eyebrow at him, and he adjusts his green tie, and he holds out the flask.

“I’ve got my ways in and out,” Tyrion says. “How else am I supposed to do business?”

The Spring formal is always held at a function hall in town, and the teachers are very careful and strict about alcohol consumption, but Tyrion always finds ways around it, because Tyrion is cleverer than half the teachers. Not that he needs the money, but he always makes a pretty penny off students desperate to be slightly tipsy on Tyrion’s watered-down wares.

“I’m not interested,” Jaime says. Tyrion waggles the flask at him again.

“It’s the good stuff. The stuff I reserve for myself and Bronn.”

“I’m honored.”

“Drink. You need the courage.”

Jaime frowns down at him, but he _does_ take the flask, and he _does_ drink. It’s whiskey. Their father’s whiskey, Jaime knows.

“He’s going to skin you alive for this,” he says, passing the flask back.

“Please. I’ll be replacing it after the dance. The benefits of having a best friend who looks prematurely twenty-five. Bronn has a supplier.”

“A supplier,” Jaime scoffs.

“Are you ever going to go in? Or are you just going to wait outside until the dance is over and maybe chance running into Brienne in the parking lot?”

“What do you _know_ , exactly?” Jaime asks. Tyrion climbs up onto the hood of Cersei’s car so he’s closer to Jaime’s level. He takes another big swig of the flask and sighs thoughtfully. They can hear the music start up from inside, flittering out. The official start of the dance. Jaime imagines Brienne in there, on Robb Stark’s arm.

“I know that you custom-ordered a necklace from a woman who specializes in metalwork. Not a typical jeweler, though I know it was quite expensive, and I know that gold and rubies were involved. An odd choice for Brienne Tarth, since silver and sapphires would have been more appropriate. But the real giveaway was that you ordered real, actual _Valyrian steel_. For a necklace.”

Jaime sighs, and he looks up at the stars.

“You are deeply irritating sometimes, you know that?”

“It’s obvious that you were recreating your soulmark in the form of a pendant on a gold chain. What wasn’t immediately obvious to me was _why_. Because it either means that Brienne Tarth is your soulmate, and you are choosing to reveal this to her by presenting her with an expensive gift. _Or_ you are giving her the necklace as a way to indicate that you wish to be with her even though your soulmarks aren’t a match. Giving her your soulmark so that you _do_ match, in a way. A suitably romantic gesture. So I did some more thinking. And I noticed, of course, that things between you and Cersei have been _bizarrely_ flat, lately. After the bet, you were furious with her. And ever since your feelings for Brienne became obvious, there has been a tension between you. There isn’t anymore. It’s like there’s nothing at all. Which means that something happened that shattered your bond more completely, and it’s going to be a difficult journey to repair it. And, of course, Cersei has seen your soulmark. She has also seen Brienne’s. I imagine it would make you quite furious, if Cersei knew all about Brienne’s soulmark and made the choice to hide it from you.”

“Give me another sip,” Jaime growls, and Tyrion hands the flask over, leaning back against the hood, looking pleased with himself.

“I’m right, obviously. Too bad. Giving her the sword if you weren’t soulmates would have been _very_ good. I would have been proud of you. Not that this way’s _bad_. It’s still romantic. And yet here you stand, outside, in the parking lot, while she’s in there waiting for you. You couldn’t ask her to go with you, but you wore a tie that perfectly matches the dress Margaery sent you a picture of. You’ve acted like a total lunatic around her all week, and you’ve brooded more in the past few days than I’ve ever seen you brood in your life. I can imagine your self-loathing has something to do with it, though I hope that the necklace means you’ve made the right choice and haven’t decided to be a _total_ idiot about this.”

“I know I need to tell her. It’ll be her choice.”

“Jaime, let me make this very easy for you: the girl looks at you like you’ve stepped out of some absurd, courtly romance. For all the time you spend staring into her eyes, it’s frankly embarrassing that you haven’t noticed.”

“I don’t know _how_ she looks at me,” Jaime mutters. “But I know that after what I did…”

“Brienne has chosen you. For months, now, she has chosen you. Do you really think she looks at you and sees the same person who caused her all that hurt? She has forgiven you, and you are her friend, and she looks at you the way I wish every girl I’ve ever met would look at me. The fact that you can’t just _feel_ it is appalling. All that adoration is wasted on you.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” Jaime finally admits. Miserably, looking down at his shoes. “Be romantic.”

“She talks to you every day. She knows what a disaster you are. And she likes you anyway. Seems to me you’re doing a fine job. There’s no accounting for taste, but since it’ll make you happy, I can’t make fun of the girl for her horrendous choices too badly.”

Tyrion smiles at Jaime, a little crookedly, and he holds out the flask again. Jaime takes a rather larger gulp this time, and he hands the flask back before swooping forward and hugging his brother. Tyrion makes a small noise of surprise, but he returns the embrace.

“I’ll be inside,” Tyrion says. “I’d better see you in there.”

“You will,” Jaime promises.

 

* * *

 

When he finally manages to force himself through the doors to the dance, his father’s good whiskey is swimming in his bloodstream. Courage, Tyrion had called it. It feels more like recklessness. Of _course_ Brienne will be happy about this! Of course she loves him. They’re soulmates! She has forgiven him, and she is already one of his best friends in the world, and he has cut the cord with Cersei for her. Surely Brienne will understand all of this. He wants it to be romantic, and the fact that he has no idea how to make it so doesn’t bother him as much as it had when he was standing outside in the parking lot.

He’s Jaime Lannister, right? And she’s Brienne Tarth. And they’re soulmates. The rest will sort itself out.

He spots her from across the room. The dress is blue, and it’s long. It’s made for a tall woman like herself, and it accentuates everything about her that he has come to adore. Her broad shoulders, her small chest, her long neck. Her legs are hidden, but the miles of dress _imply_ the presence of miles of legs, and he feels like he can see them anyway.

Her hair has been pinned up into adorable little curls. If she’s wearing any makeup, it isn’t much. She looks fresh, glowing. He only laments that the dress has short sleeves, so he can’t see the sword.

He starts making his way towards where she stands with Robb, Jon, Sam, and newly revealed soulmates Theon and Sansa, who look very enviably happy and smug. Jaime can’t wait to be that annoying. Brienne looks up before he can reach her, and that seems like still more proof. She knew that it was him! She _sensed_ him!

Yes, this is obviously going to go very well.

He waves at her with his cast. He’s rolled his sleeve up so that it’s visible, so that her words to him are visible. She laughs at him, and he smiles at her when he reaches her.

“There you are,” he says. He takes her hand. “Come on! We should dance!”

He hadn’t meant to do it so abruptly, but it’s a slow song, and he doesn’t want to miss the chance. He has this half-tipsy certainty that this will be the only slow dance for _hours_ , and he needs to slow dance with her.

Brienne doesn’t seem to mind, and she doesn’t seem to think it’s weird, which is a good sign. She’s obviously used to slow dancing, because she knows exactly where to put her hands, and he’s forced to imagine her dancing with Robb Stark.

“Already lost your jacket, I see,” she says scornfully, but with a slight uptick at the corner of her mouth so that he knows she’s teasing him. Jaime smiles at her, and she blushes at it. Her eyes roam over his face, taking him in, and he feels champagne bubbles of warmth in his stomach. She is his soulmate, and they are at the dance, and she is slow dancing with him.

“Never had one,” he says. “A jacket is trying too hard for spring formal. Everyone knows that.” He smugly glances towards the Stark corner, where Robb is looking, well, as irritatingly good-looking as ever, but he _is_ wearing a jacket. “I did see your date didn’t get the memo. Hope he’s not jealous I claimed first dance.”

“Yes, my date, the love of my life, Robb Stark. He’ll duel you for the insult later.”

“He didn’t even match your dress,” Jaime points out. He flaps his tie in her direction, and she looks between it and her dress with an unreadable expression.

“Did you… _how_ did you…?”

“Margaery Tyrell sent me a picture of it. She was very sly about it, too.”

“ _Why_ did you match my dress?”

Is she happy? Upset? He can’t tell. He fumbles a bit, some of his confidence shriveling at the realization that she might think the whole thing weird.

“Well, technically, I matched my cast,” he says, going for a slightly self-depreciating tone. “Why do you think I chose this color?” He holds up his cast to her face. “It’s the same color as your eyes. You were my knight in shining armor, and I was _unreasonably_ high on painkillers, so I demanded sapphire blue. This was the closest they could get.”

Brienne laughs his favorite loud laugh, which might mean that she thinks he’s joking.

“You’re so annoying,” she says, but it’s fond, and he feels as if it means something else when she says it like that.

“I _did_ think of asking you so we could match my cast and your eyes on purpose, but I figured you’d say no.” He forces himself to say it as if it’s a joke, and not as if it’s an obnoxious need for validation. He also pretends like the word _figured_ wouldn’t be better substituted with _feared_.

“Oh, I definitely would have,” Brienne says, laughing. Jaime’s confidence takes a tiny hit, though he knows she’s joking. “But only because I would have assumed you were messing with me.”

He remembers Connington, standing up from his cafeteria table, holding his arms open. Laughing. He remembers the pain on Brienne’s face, and the flush of her humiliation, and he remembers how angry he had been. _Messing_ with her? She thinks he would do that?

Well of course she does. Look at how they started out. There must be some part of her that doesn’t trust him. And it isn’t that he blames her, but there’s still this finger of pain in his stomach. Curling low.

“Still?” he asks. He would not have asked that if he wasn’t still slightly tipsy, he knows. She looks at him as if she is the one who has been wounded.

“Jaime, it was a joke,” she says. But it wasn’t, was it? Or it wasn’t _all_ joke, anyway. It was one of those jokes that people like Brienne and Tyrion and himself make, where they say a thing they’re afraid of in a slightly offbeat tone so that people _think_ they’re just joking.

“I really did make a mess of things, didn’t I? Back at the start.”

“What do you mean?”

“For Cersei. _With_ Cersei. Insulting you and…”

“I already told you I forgive you. It was a _joke_.”

“If I had asked you, I would have asked you for real. Not a prank. I’m not Red _Connington_.”

“I know you’re not,” she says, and now she’s irritated with him.

“Then how could you think I would…”

“Because you mess with me!” she blurts. “That’s our dynamic! I wouldn’t have thought it was to be _mean_. Not anymore.”

“But it would be…cruel.”

“Not on purpose.”

_That_ stings for some reason. Her gentle assurance.

“Not exactly a ringing endorsement of me. Only cruel by accident now.”

Her face clouds, and she begins to back away from him.

“Jaime…” she says, but he holds on, and he doesn’t let her go far.

“I was _going_ to ask you.” He needs her to know. “I was. But I fucking…I waited too long, and then after the fight, and the thing with…with Cersei, I just…”

“Okay,” she says, placating.

“You still don’t believe me, do you?”

“I mean…” She laughs, and he doesn’t understand why. “Oh, come on, Jaime. It’s not a big deal, really. It was a joke. I don’t need to be asked to dances, and I don’t think you…”

“It _should_ be a big deal. People should _want_ to go to dances with you. You should have big romantic gestures and, and important symbols of love, or whatever!”

“Have you been drinking?” she asks. He _has_ , but that’s not all this is. He just wishes that his mouth would cooperate. _You deserve big gestures because I think I’m in love with you. I was going to ask you to the dance because I want to go with you to every dance for the rest of our lives. I wouldn’t do something to hurt you,_ anything _to hurt you, because you’re my soulmate and I want to make you laugh that loud laugh every single fucking day._ Brienne is still looking at him, still gentle, still _oblivious_. “Tyrion?” she guesses.

“He said I needed some,” Jaime admits. “It was only a little.”

“Well, it’s very nice of slightly tipsy Jaime to try and defend me from, I don’t know, myself? But it’s really unnecessary. I know myself pretty well at this point, you know. And I know what I look like, and I know I’m not…”

She’s so rational. So practical about it. But no, Jaime realizes. Not practical. She’s _resigned_. She’s resigned, because she thinks that romantic gestures and being asked to dances and probably things like pretty dresses and flowers and romantic custom-made necklaces aren’t _for_ her. She goes to dances with Robb because Robb is her best friend and because he asks, and she thinks that no one else ever will because for some reason Tyrion was right, and Jaime is the only person who sees what a fucking treasure she is. It’s unconscionable. It’s absurd. It’s a tragedy, because Brienne Tarth should know exactly how wonderful she is. Jaime should be _knee deep in competition_ , and the fact that he is the only one standing here is infuriating.

So he kisses her.

He has to surge up on his toes a little bit so that they are of equal height, and that delights him. The small, shocked noise she makes in the back of her throat when he does it delights him. The softness of her lips delights him. It’s all a fucking delight, and he feels very full and very warm and very, unbelievably happy. He puts his hand on her jaw, and he deepens the kiss, and she returns it.

Brienne pulls back first, and her eyes are big as they blink down at him.

“Jaime,” she says.

“Brienne,” he replies. She bites her lower lip, just for a second, and he watches the movement.

“Why did you do that?” she asks.

He does not think. He says, “because I wanted to.”

She takes a few more steps back, so that his hand must drop away. His lips are tingling, and his fingertips are too. Everywhere he touched her. His soulmate. His _soulmate_ , and even better, it’s _Brienne_. She’s still looking at him. Astonished.

“ _Why_?” she asks. “Look at me.”

Jaime’s smile grows. _Look at me_. As if he hasn’t been looking at her since the fight. Since earlier, even, since the time he realized he liked her freckles while they sparred.

“I look at you quite a lot, Brienne,” he says.

She shakes her head, and it’s only then that he realizes he’s fucked it up. He wasn’t supposed to kiss her first. He was supposed to _tell_ her. He was supposed to give her the necklace. He was supposed to let her know that he thinks she’s beautiful.

She shakes her head, and she turns around, and she _leaves_. Actually just leaves, walks away, straight off the dance floor and out through the front. Jaime’s standing there, suddenly sober, and he tries to find Tyrion, but the only person he sees is Cersei. She’s frowning, her eyebrows furrowed. Confused, he realizes. She’s confused. She must have seen the kiss. It suddenly occurs to Jaime that he should probably be embarrassed about this. They were standing in the middle of the dancefloor, and he’s just kissed someone, and she got upset and stormed away after, which seems like a pretty thorough rejection. He looks around to see if anyone’s watching, but only Sam Tarly’s eyes catch his. Big and wide, his mouth gaping open.

Furiously tapping heels behind him, and he turns just in time for Cersei to stride up, her eyebrows arched finely, her arms crossed over her chest.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Looking for Tyrion?”

“So he can get you drunker and you can make more of a mess of things?” Cersei tugs on his tie, straightening it with a bit more force than necessary. She looks at him with a flashing challenge in her eyes. “Follow her. Tell her everything. Don’t just kiss her and expect everything to make sense to her.”

“I thought she’d know,” Jaime says miserably.

“She doesn’t.” She fixes his hair slightly. “There. Go.”

“Why are you helping me?” he asks. She looks at him. Her brow furrows further.

“Because it will make you happy,” she says.

“Cersei…”

“Ugh. Don’t push it. _Go_.”

She turns him around and shoves him towards the doors. Jaime takes a few deep breaths, ignoring Mr. Selmy’s concerned expression, and then he follows Brienne.

 

* * *

 

She’s standing just outside the doors. When he gets out there, she’s staring up at the sky.

“Wait,” he says. “ _Please_. I fucked it up again. I keep _doing_ that.”

“Jaime…” Brienne starts. She’s wiping at her eyes, because she’s been _crying_ , and he feels absolutely wretched. It’s the library all over again. It might be _worse_ than the library.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I thought you wanted me to.”

“So, what, it was just a, a fucking _pity kiss_?” Brienne asks. It’s the most absurd thing Jaime has ever heard, and he takes several steps forward propelled by his absolute incredulity. He grabs her hand and holds it tight, willing her to understand. How can she not see? Everyone else has told him he’s obvious. Everyone else has been mocking him for weeks over this. How can she be the only person who doesn’t know?

“No! I wanted to kiss you. That’s not…I planned this whole thing. I got you a gift and everything. A necklace. I had it made special. I don’t know much about necklaces, but it’s very well made, I think. I was going to give it to you later, after the dance. And then you’d know, but I…I shouldn’t have drank anything. Tyrion said it would help me get my courage, but then I saw you, and I got all nervous and forgot the order I wanted to do things in. But I _wanted_ to kiss you. I still do. You keep looking at me like that, like I’m lying, but I’m not.

“You have to admit it’s a bit hard to believe,” Brienne says. And Jaime hates himself, he really does. He does most days, for most things, but especially now, standing here with her, because he knows that this wouldn’t be nearly so hard for her to understand if he hadn’t been such an absolute dickswab before.

“It’s really not that hard to believe from where I’m standing,” he says. “I know that you’ve heard things that people have said, for years. And I was one of them, probably the biggest asshole of the lot. And I know that all together, those things made you think…”

“I don’t need other people to tell me what I look like, Jaime.”

“Apparently you do, because I think you’re beautiful.”

And then Brienne actually begins to _cry_. She pulls away and tries to hide her face, and he lets go of her hand and feels like he might be close to crying himself. How can you show someone how much you care for them? He doesn’t know. His entire upbringing has been a lesson in exactly the opposite.

“I really _do_ keep fucking this up,” he muses aloud. “It’s almost impressive how badly I’ve…please stop crying, Brienne. I don’t know how…” But, oh, he _is_ an idiot, because there’s a very easy solution to all of this. “Here, okay. Look. Fuck it. Look.”

Which would hardly be a smooth way to show his soulmate that she’s his soulmate in the first place, except then he can’t even get the buttons on his shirt undone because of his fucking cast and because he’s so nervous, and everything is truly terrible, and his soulmate has to watch him try to pull open his shirt with his teeth.

“What are you _doing_?” she asks.

“I’m taking off my shirt,” he says.

“ _Why_?”

“I’m trying to be romantic.”

“By taking off your shirt?”

“Are you going to help me or not? I have something you apparently need to see before you’ll believe me.”

Brienne only stares at him. Her eyes are still wet with unshed tears, and he desperately wants them to go away, and he curses his stupid cast and his stupid fumbling fingers and everything about this situation. He can’t believe he managed to fuck everything up so _badly_.

Brienne blinks.

“Oh,” she says, because she’s too smart for him by far, and of course she has connected those dots.

“No, no, no, don’t make that _thinking_ face at me. You’re not allowed to figure it out before I show you!”

“Jaime, I…”

“Shh, shh. Come on. Help me take my shirt off. I need you to see it. You’ll believe me, then.”

Brienne finally steps forward, close to him, and she unbuttons his shirt. Jaime wants to kiss her again, but he’s not going to make _that_ mistake twice. He shrugs out of his shirt instead, and he turns around.

She is silent for a bit, and Jaime feels his anxiety ramp up just from her lack of reaction.

Then she says, “oh,” again, and she reaches out, and she touches it, just the way that he did to hers. Except she’s open about it. Her fingers linger on it, and then she pulls them away.

Jaime turns to face her, and he still can’t tell how she feels about it. He’s _so_ nervous.

“I saw yours at Ramsay’s house,” he says. She shakes her head. She blinks. She opens her mouth several times before committing.

“I don’t understand,” is what she eventually says, and Jaime’s really very scared now. He’s pretty sure he’s sweating even though he’s standing outside in the chilly evening air in a tank top.

“ _I_ understand. I’ve wanted to kiss you for months. It makes total fucking sense to me. It apparently made sense to Cersei, too.”

“What? What about Cersei?”

“She told me. _Months_ ago, before you and I were friends, she told me that she’d seen your soulmark. She was so angry that you would have a soulmate when she didn’t even have her mark yet. Or that’s what I thought, at the time. Now I realize it was because your soulmate was _me_. That’s why she wanted to make you miserable. That’s why she wanted me to _help_. My sister and I…we’ve never had the healthiest relationship. Tyrion always says ‘codependent would be a nice way of putting it’, and he’s probably right. And the idea that I might not be the one made for her…I think it upset her.”

“You think it upset her,” Brienne says flatly. Jaime smiles. It’s such a _Brienne_ thing to say.

“I _know_ it upset her. She didn’t get her own soulmark until a few weeks ago. When I talked to her about it the other night, she said that she did it because she didn’t want to _lose_ me. Because if I knew my soulmate, it would mean that I wasn’t constantly by her side. But she lost me anyway, I guess. When I realized what she had done…She kept this from me. Kept _you_ from me, because she was jealous. I don’t know what I’m trying to say, except I imagine I should say that I like you a lot. I’ve liked you for weeks, even before the soulmark. I’ve been trying to _date_ you for weeks. I’m. Shit, I don’t know much about it. I guess I might love you? It’s hard to say. I love you as a person. I know that. As a friend. But I think I love you as everything else, too.”

She looks away, and he doesn’t know what that means. Is she embarrassed? Tywin and Cersei used to call his emotional outbursts _embarrassing displays_. Is that how she feels?

“You love me,” she finally whispers.

“I might,” he admits. He feels like he’s fucked it up again. “Unless that’s too quick?”

“I don’t know anything about it either,” Brienne says with a small smile for him, and Jaime forces a laugh. She needs more. He can give her more. He’ll give her anything.

“I started to suspect after we sparred. It was strange. I’d never found you attractive before, but suddenly, when we were fighting, I realized that I liked how tall you were. I liked your big shoulders, and I thought your freckles were very cute. And then we were in the bouncy castle at Arya’s nameday, and I realized that your lips looked very soft, and your nose had a lot of character. I didn’t think those things before, but then I did. Your eyes have always been nice, but suddenly they were the best eyes in the world. And your legs.”

“My legs?”

“They’re very long. I like them. And then that thing with the library happened, and I felt wretched about it, and that was another clue. I was used to caring only about the people in my family. And suddenly I cared that I’d hurt you, and that you didn’t want to forgive me. Tyrion called me an idiot, and he was right, and I wanted you to be friends with me again. That weekend was the happiest I’d felt in a long time, and I wanted that feeling back, even though I knew I had no right to ask. But I knew for sure when you punched Hoat for me. It was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and I knew it was you. I knew if I could look at your back, I’d see it.”

“How could you _possibly_ know that?”

“Because I looked at you standing above me, and you looked…I don’t know. You looked exactly how the sword made me feel when I first saw it. I just knew. And I knew I wanted you. Even if it _wasn’t_ you, I’d have wanted you anyway. I’d have probably said _fuck whoever my soulmate is. The universe got it wrong_. But then I saw it when you were helping Theon. It was practically _glowing_ on you.” Now _he’s_ close to crying. He hopes she doesn’t mind that. “It was still such a relief. I was so afraid I was wrong.”

“Me,” she says. “You were relieved because it’s _me_.”

She still doesn’t believe him, he doesn’t think. But she’s willing to entertain the possibility. He grins at her a little. The effect is probably ruined because his eyes are about to spill over, but he _tries_.

“You have to believe me,” he says, and he puts his hand on her shoulder so he can tap the spot where her soulmark lies. He leans in, trying to let her know with his eyes and his smile and every iota of his being that he wants her to kiss him. “It’s the law.”

“You’re an ass,” she says. “I like you too. _A lot_. Have for weeks, at least.”

“Oh, good. I was beginning to worry,” Jaime says, which is the world’s largest understatement.

“Though I’m starting to wonder _why_ I do,” she continues, in a funny musing tone that makes Jaime laugh through his nervousness, and then she puts both hands on his face, and he feels like he’s _surrounded_ by her like this, and then she locks eyes with him, for just a moment. _The best eyes in the world_.

And then she finally ends his misery and kisses him.

 

* * *

 

They miss most of the rest of the dance, because neither of them want to go back inside. They sit on a bench by the front door, under the watchful eye of Mr. Selmy, who occasionally glances through the glass to make sure they aren’t doing anything untoward. Brienne stumbles her way through telling him about how she feels about him, and Jaime is probably smug and irritating about it, but it somehow isn’t bad enough for her to decide to call a soulmark removal service, so that’s nice. She still seems improbably shocked that he’s so interested in her.

“Everyone’s been giving me shit for it,” he laments. “Ever since the fight. I thought it was obvious. I’m terrible at hiding my feelings, I think, unless I give it a real effort.”

“Maybe I’m bad at interpreting feelings, because I didn’t notice at all. I’m just relieved to hear I was so good at hiding mine.”

“You were a _wall_! I could never tell. I basically _begged_ you to think of dating me, and you just laughed like I was joking and never brought it up again. It was impossible to get a read on you.”

Brienne lights up, her smile incredulous.

“I never brought it up again because it made me realize I had a massive fucking crush on you! That destroyed me for _weeks_.”

Jaime laughs, and he holds Brienne’s hand, because he can.

“It made my own crush worse, so maybe that’s adequate revenge. Everything I said then still holds true, by the way. I will do everything I can do be a good boyfriend to you, Brienne.”

“Oh, is that what we’re doing? The whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing? It wasn’t really clear.”

“Don’t be rude. We’re lucky I managed this much without fucking it up even worse.”

“You didn’t fuck it up,” Brienne promises, and she uses her free hand to hold onto his face, her hand sliding under his jaw. He wonders if she realizes how vulnerable and trembly and _safe_ it makes him feel. He never wants her to stop touching him like this. “I just…misunderstood. I thought you were being a good friend. Wanting me to have a good dance. Giving me a romantic moment even if you wouldn’t have chosen to offer it to me on your own.”

“I panicked and kissed you. Some romance.”

“It got us here,” Brienne reminds him. She glances at Selmy’s back through the glass to make sure he isn’t looking, and then she leans forward and kisses Jaime again. When she pulls back, Jaime chases her, and she laughs against his lips. “Honestly, Jaime. I’ve liked you for a while now, and you’ve never _once_ managed to be smooth about anything. It hasn’t bothered me. You don’t have to _try_ to make me like you.”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t,” Jaime points out. “You deserve someone who will try.”

“If you think I’m so deserving, then you should agree that I deserve exactly who I want,” she says, firmly, leaving no room for argument. Jaime’s brain flashes with all sorts of little lights and alarms. She makes him feel so loved, and he cares about her so much, and of _course_ she deserves whatever she wants. If she wants him, she’ll have him.

It’s that simple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel a little guilty that I wasn't able to turn the Cersei conversation into a more cathartic one, but I wrote myself into a corner because in Two Halves of a Soul I had Jaime complain that the conversation wasn't quite good enough. So I hope y'all are ready for Closure Convo 2: Even More Closure in the epilogue.


	7. My Knight in Shining Armor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne finally takes off her helmet and shakes out her hair in front of him, so Jaime can die happy now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is brought to you by one of my fave show scenes, where Jaime is captured and tries to goad Robb with a classic "1v1 me bro" challenge, and Robb is like "lol no????? I would lose??? why would I fight you????" because it still makes me laugh EVERY TIME.
> 
> Also I lied about the Cersei closure sequel scene, because I remembered how much I love Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey, and this happened instead. Assume in like 5 years they have another heavy convo and work their shit out, idk

On the way home, Tyrion and Bronn are singing disparate songs in the backseat, somewhat drunkenly. Cersei loathes Bronn roughly five times more than she loathes Tyrion, but she is strangely serene. Her dress has no sleeves, and it proudly shows off her soulmark. On her right shoulderblade. That seems significant for a moment, the fact that it is on the opposite shoulder from Jaime’s. _We are a mirror, not a copy_.

“Well?” she asks quietly.

 “It worked,” he says. Cersei nods.

“ _What_ worked?” Tyrion asks. He unbuckles his seatbelt and lurches forward to cling to the center console. “Did you talk to her? Did you give her the necklace?”

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Jaime says. Tyrion laughs at him, and Cersei closes her eyes and shakes her head.

“You’re hopeless,” she says, and she clearly means for her voice to stay sturdy and irritated, but there’s something a little wavering in it, and it makes Tyrion laugh even harder.

“Are you _laughing_ at him? Gods, you are. Fuck me, the two of you really can’t stay angry with each other, can you?”

“Oh, he’s still angry with me,” Cersei says dismissively. “I’m not angry. I’m…well. Certainly not telling _you_ about it.”

“Well, I’ve enjoyed this brief moment of levity before we have to go home and face the gaoler,” Tyrion says. “Bronn, be ready with the whiskey. Cersei, distract father. Jaime, I imagine you’ll be particularly useless right now, because you’ll be too busy dreaming of your enormous blonde goddess, so you can just fuck off to your room.”

“She _is_ quite big, isn’t she?” Bronn says, thoughtful. “Wonder what that’s like. Might have to get me a big woman. Might be nice to be thrown around a bit.”

Cersei’s lip curls into a deadly sneer.

“I’ll distract father for you,” she says. “ _If_ you promise that I’ll never have to be in Bronn’s presence again.”

“Done,” Tyrion says.

 

* * *

 

Jaime _does_ spend a little time when they get home daydreaming about Brienne, because it’s either that or text her endlessly, and he’s trying to give her some space. Tywin turns out to be late at the office, so Bronn is banished to the basement, and Tyrion and Cersei drink the whiskey that’s left over after they replace what was taken from Tywin’s decanter. They barge into Jaime’s room as he’s about to go to sleep, and they both jump on his bed and goad him into drinking with them, and it’s just like it was when they were children.

Well, slightly drunker, but the camaraderie is the same. Cersei used to pretend not to loathe Tyrion, just because she knew it made Jaime happy when they all got along. And Tyrion wasn’t yet cynical enough to realize that Cersei would always choose to please their father over caring for the little brother she had never wanted, and so he would cling to those moments with wide eyes and this heartbreaking hope that always made Jaime feel sick even before it was over, because he knew it _would_ be over.

But they’re drunk now, and Tyrion has become cynical enough to hide his hope, and Cersei has her arm around him as she snatches the bottle and drinks again. She laughs at something sarcastic he says. She ruffles his hair. Jaime slams into drunkenness gracelessly, and he imagines how things might be in a couple of years, once they’ve been allowed to grow up and leave their father’s house. Maybe _he’s_ the one who isn’t cynical enough to know how it’s going to turn out, because he can so easily imagine the three of them getting along. Cersei learning to accept Tyrion and stop trying so hard to make Tywin respect her. Jaime learning to balance the two of them and his own outside life effectively. Tyrion learning he doesn’t have to overcompensate with intelligence to make people like him. Maybe it’s just a pretty dream, but it feels possible with enough alcohol in him.

“I’ll try to be better,” Cersei says, at one point. She’s looking at Jaime, but she has her arm around Tyrion when she says it, and Jaime’s eyes catch the way her fingers tighten on him. Tyrion’s eyes gleam for just a moment.

“You can’t do worse,” he seems to force himself to say, his mouth tightening into a thin line. Jaime watches him force his hope back down.

“I’d like that,” Jaime says. Cersei isn’t looking at either of them. She takes another enormous gulp of whiskey. Strengthening herself.

“I’m sorry,” she says. She says the words as if they’re physically painful. Jaime blinks at her. Tyrion gapes at her. She glares between them. “Don’t be…dicks. About this.”

“Maybe in another five years, you’ll actually say it like you mean it,” Tyrion snorts, and Cersei laughs and hands the bottle over. The moment passes.

 

* * *

 

And then it’s even later, and they’ve finished reminiscing about the time Uncle Kevan took them up north and they all bonded out of solidarity for how much they hated the cold. They’re almost out of the extra whiskey. Tyrion fumbles for his phone.

“I have something for you, my dear, sweet sister,” he slurs. “Because you’ve been almost nice today, and because you helped Jaime, who I like quite a bit. You deserve a present.”

“Is it a necklace?” Cersei asks, barely able to get the joke out without laughing, and she and Tyrion both lose their shit while Jaime groans and buries his face in the pillow.

“No, it isn’t a necklace,” Tyrion finally manages. He scrolls through his phone, frowning down at it for a bit. He holds it up in Cersei’s face, shoving it too close, and it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust.

“A beach photo of you and your friends?”

“Keep looking,” Tyrion says. Jaime raises his head enough to arch an eyebrow in question. Tyrion just leans back on his elbows and waits, looking very smug.

Cersei gasps, turning her gaze on Tyrion. He grins back at her.

Jaime has never, in all his life, been more surprised than he is when Cersei flings her arms around Tyrion and squeezes him to her chest. She has dropped the phone in her excitement, so while she and Tyrion freak out together, Jaime fumbles for it and squints down at the picture. It’s Tyrion, Bronn, and one of Tyrion’s girlfriends, Shae. It’s from a Dornish beach, so it must have been taken a few weeks ago, when they went for that long weekend trip and met up with the Martells. There appears to be a volleyball game going on behind them, with Elia and Doran Martell plainly visible on the other side of the net. Tyrion, in the picture, is making a face and pointing over his own shoulder at the tan back of Elia’s little brother Oberyn. It’s blurry and a little off-centered, but that’s _definitely_ a snarling lion on his back, with a mane that looks like the sun.

“I very cleverly took a selfie so I could get a picture of his back,” Tyrion says with pride. “I realize I should have just asked him, because it’s Oberyn Martell. He would have just…let me.”

“How did you even _know_?” Cersei screeches, jumping up to pace around the room a little, her eyes wide and glassy with drink and excitement. “I didn’t tell anyone!”

“Shae,” Tyrion sighs dreamily. “Shae knows _everything_.”

“Elia is gonna _hate_ this,” Jaime realizes, and Cersei cackles with delight, grabbing the phone back to look at the picture again.

“No, she’ll love it. She knows her little brother is going to eat me _alive_.” She sounds almost fond of the idea. “Oh gods, Oberyn Martell? I suppose it makes a certain kind of sense.”

“You’re both absolute sharks,” Tyrion agrees. Cersei kisses him on the forehead. Jaime dozes for a bit, but Cersei and Tyrion wake him up again, both of them yelling because Tyrion is loudly trying to tell a story about Ros, his other girlfriend, and Cersei is screaming in horror, covering her ears.

 

* * *

 

He’s a bit hungover the next morning, but not so hungover that he doesn’t immediately pick up his phone to check if he has any messages. Sansa has texted him seven times, an unknown number has texted him three times, and Brienne has texted him once.

Brienne’s says, simply, _I’m sorry in advance for the rest of them_. Sansa’s messages are absurd, overly flowery declarations of support for he and Brienne’s relationship. The unknown number is probably Robb, as it is a very straightforward threat of dismemberment if he ever hurts Brienne again. He flips back to Brienne’s message.

_Nothing I can’t handle_ , he writes.

 

* * *

 

He forces himself to make coffee, and Tyrion makes breakfast sandwiches for all three of them. Cersei is miserable hungover, but she’s still giddy about the whole soulmate thing, so her _thank you_ to Tyrion mostly evens out. She takes her sandwich back up to her room to eat, but Tyrion and Jaime stay at the table.

“You’re just _dying_ to call her, aren’t you?” Tyrion asks, shittily.

“Shut up.”

“You are. It’s adorable.”

“I’m eating breakfast, and then I’m going to shower,” Jaime replies, very firmly, and Tyrion chuckles even more derisively.

“You’re setting little goals you have to meet before you’re allowing yourself to call her. This is too precious. Jaime’s first girlfriend.”

“I hate you,” Jaime says. He swallows the insignificant bit of dignity that remains to him, and he asks, “would it be weird to call her this early?”

 

* * *

 

Once Tyrion is finished laughing at him, he tells Jaime that it would not be weird to call Brienne, and so Jaime does.

“I’m glad you called,” she says, and she _sounds_ glad, which makes Jaime glad too. “I was going to earlier. I was wondering who we should tell about, um, about _us_ , because I…”

She hesitates, and Jaime tries to force himself not to feel any self-conscious nervousness about it.

“You what?” he asks.

“I don’t really know the rules,” she says. He laughs at her. “I’ve never dated anyone before!”

“I’ve never dated anyone before either,” Jaime reminds her. “So we can make our own rules.”

“I just mean, it seems strange to go around _telling_ everyone.”

“We don’t have to tell anyone. I’ve already told Tyrion, and one of us can text Margaery. By the start of the week, the whole school will know.”

“Do we _want_ the whole school to know?” Brienne asks. Jaime is briefly startled by the question. Of course he wants people to know. He wants to tell _everyone_. He would literally paint it on the front doors of the school if he didn’t think Brienne might dump him for it. But maybe Brienne’s experiences have made her wary. Not wanting attention. “I _want_ people to know,” she says, suddenly. “I just mean…people are going to be, well…”

“Cruel?” Jaime guesses.

“You know they will be.”

“Do you care what they say? I mean, _really_ care. Because we can keep it quiet if you do.”

She hesitates, and he can tell that she’s thinking about it seriously. Really considering how she feels and not just answering automatically. He likes the way she thinks things through. He’s always been so impulsive.

“What about you?” she finally asks.

“Well I’ve already called aunt Genna, and I’ve told Tyrion, and I can’t _wait_ to tell my father that he can stop trying to introduce me to the daughters of all his business partners. And if anyone at school says anything…well, I’ve long stopped caring what they think of me, and I’m certainly not going to start over something as amazing as figuring out that you’re my soulmate.”

He feels a bit embarrassed once he’s finished. A short answer – _no, I don’t care what they say_ – would have been a little less revealing. But Brienne just hums quietly, and he knows that she appreciates it.

“Do you think your father is going to have an issue with it?” she asks.

“With me meeting my soulmate?” he asks.

“With your soulmate being me.”

Jaime stifles a sigh. The answer is likely _yes_. His father probably _will_ have some absurd opinions about Brienne’s _general unacceptability_. And while it’s true that Jaime has, too often, cared too much about what Tywin Lannister thinks, this is one area in which he will not bend. The real answer is that it doesn’t _matter_ if his father has an issue with it, but he doesn’t think Brienne will feel reassured by that.

“I think we should have a new rule,” he says.

“A new rule?”

“Yes. You’re not allowed to think anything but the absolute best about yourself.”

“That may be an easy rule for _you_ to follow…”

He laughs. He cannot help it. It’s too ridiculous. If only she could see inside his mind.

“You know it’s not,” he says. “Do you think _your_ father will have an issue with your soulmate being someone who used to be an absolute monster to you?”

It’s Brienne’s turn to laugh a little. It’s more of a scoff. Unthinking.

“My father doesn’t know about any of that,” she says.

“Ugh. Honestly. You’ve _got_ to stop being so good. It’s making it very hard to date you. I’m already so far behind. Here, let’s call a truce.”

“A _truce_?”

“Turns out we’re pretty good at them, aren’t we? This one is easier. No more insulting ourselves.”

Brienne laughs, and she gives it some more thought.

“All right,” she says. “Truce.”

Her voice is low and pleased, and suddenly he cannot wait to see her. He was going to wait until the beginning of the week. Give her some space, and then see her in school. But what’s the point of waiting?

“We need to shake on it, so how about you come pick me up and we go to the movies? There’s that movie out with the kids in the woods and the murders. I want popcorn and my girlfriend and being very scared of terrible film.”

He feels a bit needy when he asks, but he can hear her smiling when she says, “all right. It’s a date.”

 

* * *

 

Jaime has never been to the movies with a girl he liked before. He likes ticking off those boxes. First kiss. First dance. First date. He has been too nervous and confused and has been feeling too unworthy through this whole process, so it’s nice to actually be excited about it. The lack of romance in his life had never really bothered him before, because it was not nearly as important as making sure that Cersei didn’t feel the sting of her unmarked skin. But now that it’s an option, he knows it was one of those things that was probably quietly, _secretly_ bothering him even though he convinced himself that it wasn’t.

He restrains himself, because he knows that Brienne is nervous. He makes a few obnoxious jokes, and he grabs her arm in half-jest during a particularly scary part, and she laughs at him and rolls her eyes. He’s quite used to being her annoying, clingy friend, and he imagines that being her boyfriend will be something similar.

And then she leans over and kisses him.

It’s just once, just quickly, when two girls on the screen are running from a killer. She leans in close, and he thinks she means to say something, so he turns to look at her, and he finds that she’s already looking at him, and smiling a bit, and then she presses her soft lips to his. Just barely, just a small amount of pressure, and he wonders if his own face is blushing the way hers usually does. He thinks it probably is.

 

* * *

 

Their first day back at school, he’s nervous. But he can tell that Brienne is even more so, so he makes sure to hide his nerves and act as reassuring as possible. A Lannister Smile. Casual and uncaring and mocking anyone who would look at them and see anything other than perfect bliss.

Two people accost him in the hallway that first day. The first is Robb Stark, who ignores his sister’s pleading whispers to stop being so _embarrassing_. He walks up to Jaime and arches his eyebrows, giving him this little twirling finger move. Jaime sighs and turns around, and Robb pulls his t-shirt down in the back to confirm the soulmark.

“I’m not going to ask if you care about her, because you obviously do,” he says when Jaime has turned back around. Sansa has her face buried in her hands. “But you really hurt her before. Brienne doesn’t like to show it, but she can’t hide it from me. If you do it again, we’re going to have a problem.”

“You’re going to _fight_ me?” Jaime asks incredulously. He can’t help it. Robb Stark is decently built, but he’s a _soccer player_.

“One on one? Are you insane?” Robb asks. “I’d lose that fight. No, fuck that. We’d all just jump you in the parking lot or something.”

“That seems more fair,” Jaime agrees.

“I’m really sorry about this,” Sansa whispers, and she finally succeeds in tugging Robb away.

 

* * *

 

The second person to approach him in the hallway is Margaery, and she smiles so brightly at Jaime that Jaime _knows_ he’s about to be threatened to within an inch of his life.

“Jaime, love,” she says, and he’s definitely fucked. “My lovely Lannister lion. My favorite bottom. Do you have a moment?”

“I’m afraid to say no,” Jaime says honestly, which makes Margaery giggle prettily as she gestures for him to follow. Jaime casts a final despairing look around the hallway, hoping to spot _anyone_ who will help him, but he only sees Tyrion, who is already laughing at him, and will doubtless be no help.

Margaery takes him to her locker, and she opens it, taking her time, smiling at him as she replaces her books. She checks her makeup in the little mirror on the inside of the door. There are pictures tucked around the frame: one of she and Loras and an older woman who must be their grandmother, one of she and Sansa and two other sophomore girls Jaime only barely recognizes, and one of she and Brienne at a heroic fair with Renly and Loras.

“Do you like that one?” Margaery asks, taking the photo down and handing it to Jaime. “I didn’t know her very well when we took it. It was one of her first weekends coming with us. She was very shy back then.”

Margaery’s smile is friendly and warm, but Jaime understands this game after years of listening to Cersei. What Margaery is really saying is _Brienne was shy because you were a total dick to her, and now she’s in a better place._

“She’s still shy,” he says. “But I think people have learned to see beyond that.”

_I’m not the same person. I wouldn’t hurt her._

“That’s true, and I’m so glad you two are together. After all, we’ve known each other a long time. My family has always been so intimately acquainted with yours. I feel like Brienne is part of _my_ family now, too.”

_I know every secret you’ve ever had, and Brienne is important to me. Do the math, fuckface._

 

* * *

 

He tells Brienne about it later, at lunch, and she’s plainly amused but also a little disbelieving. He knows she doesn’t like it when people go to any trouble for her, but Jaime’s honestly pleased that Margaery confronted him. As he puts it to Brienne, “I am a little insulted that she’s got a better handle on big gestures than I do, but I’m glad she’s doing something nice for you.”

_Big gestures_ , he thinks to himself. Something sparks in his brain. A half-formed thought. Brienne looks at him with fondness.

“You’re pathetic,” she says, smiling, in a tone of realization, and he likes her _so much_.

“So pathetic,” he agrees. Then, “oh, shit.”

_Big gestures. Big romantic gestures. You had that necklace made for her and it has been_ days _._

“What?” Brienne asks.

“The fucking _necklace_ ,” Jaime says. “Here I am, talking about big gestures, and I fucking forgot…wait here. I’ll be right back. _Fuck_. I’m such a fucking…”

“Truce,” she reminds him before he can call himself a worthless idiot, and he kisses her on the cheek before he hurries away.

 

* * *

 

The necklace is in the center console in Cersei’s car, where he put it the previous night _specifically_ so that he would remember to give it to Brienne today. It’s in a small, black jewelry box, so it blends in with the interior, and for half a second he panics when he doesn’t see it and thinks it’s gone. He takes the necklace out of the box, because Tyrion had dryly reminded him that Brienne would sprint in the other direction out of terror if she saw it, because it looks like the kind of box that would be better suited to an engagement ring, and even patient and understanding Brienne would think him _mad_ if she thought he wanted to propose to her already.

He takes the necklace and carries it carefully in his hand like a trapped ladybug, and he brings it all the way to her locker. She has to put it on herself, because his cast continues to ruin all these moments, but her big blue eyes well with emotion when she does, and he feels pleased with himself. The replica of their soulmark hangs from its delicate gold chain, and he likes the look of it there. He likes just _knowing_ that his sword is at her back, but it’s nice to get to see it, too.

He has longed for this. Not just a soulmate, but Brienne. And not just Brienne, but a soulmate. To have them be the same person is a gift he knows he doesn’t deserve, but he knows Brienne would be angry if he said that. So he will stop trying to _deserve_ things, and he will only go on very quietly trying to earn them.

 

* * *

 

After a few days of blissfully dating Brienne and forgetting that bad things exist in the world, Jaime is called into his father’s office. He’s fairly certain he’s in trouble when he sees that Tywin has his reading glasses on, and then he _knows_ he’s in trouble when he sees that Tywin is holding a credit card bill. Tywin usually doesn’t give a shit about credit card statements. He just _pays_ them. But Jaime knows immediately what this is about, and he feels nervous.

“Can you explain this?” Tywin asks, pointing to a line on the statement. Jaime knows it’s the necklace even before he reads.

“It was a necklace,” he says. _Not for Cersei_ , he wants to say, but doesn’t.

“You commissioned a very expensive piece of jewelry. Why?”

Unimpressed as ever, Tywin waits. Jaime tries to swallow back nervousness. _He’s going to find out eventually_ , he reasons.

“I met my soulmate,” he says stiffly. Tywin stares at him. “Well, I already knew her. But I found out she was my soulmate. So I…I wanted to let her know. I found a metalworker and jeweler who could recreate our sword.”

“And this soulmate. Did she like the necklace?”

“I…yes.”

The fact of Tywin asking something as oddly human as _did she like it_ is so off-putting that Jaime stares at his father, expecting something terrible to follow. Tywin only hums and removes his glasses.

“What’s her name?”

Deep breath. He tells himself that it doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t. He will do whatever he has to to be worthy of Brienne, and that includes standing up to his father for her.

“You met her,” he forces himself to say. “Brienne Tarth. She dropped me off.”

“The tall girl.”

“Yes.”

“She’s a soccer player, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Is she good?”

“I think so, yes.”

Another thoughtful hum.

“Your brother let it slip to me that your recent disagreements with Cersei have something to do with her treatment of Brienne. Is that true?” Jaime hesitates, torn between calling his brother a liar and admitting his sister was cruel, and Tywin shakes his head. “Never mind. I will speak to Cersei. She will have to apologize, of course. It wouldn’t be good for her to be uncomfortable around your family. She’s an awkward looking girl, your Brienne Tarth. That doesn’t bother you?”

Jaime finds his voice, his throat dry, the sound of it reedy.

“No,” he says. Tywin nods.

“All right,” he says. He puts his glasses on and goes back to reading the statement. “You can go.”

It’s the Tywin Lannister version of a blessing. Jaime knows it’s lucky he got _this_ much.

 

* * *

 

“How many of those did you bring?” Brienne asks, looking down at Jaime’s bag full of handkerchiefs with an equal mix of amusement and annoyance. It’s a common reaction from Brienne when it comes to him, and he loves it. He’s not sure why, but he adores the fact that she finds him as occasionally irritating as she does but still somehow likes him anyway.

“There was a bulk sale,” Jaime says, feeling a bit defensive. Brienne looks intimidating in the dark blue armor from Goodwin, ready at last. Renly and Loras are looking similarly dashing in their own gleaming sets, but Brienne stands taller than anyone else on the field, and Jaime has a good feeling about her chances. He yanks one of the monogrammed handkerchiefs from his backpack and ties it around her wrist, grinning up at her and saying, “a favor for my lady” while Brienne blushes. He’s feeling particularly attractive in the reddish-brown jacket Margaery brought for him, and Brienne is looking extremely good with her armor and her eyes and her steely determination. He just _knows_ that everyone is looking at them.

“Wish me luck,” Brienne says, and she kisses him. He likes her all the time, but he likes her especially when she gets like _this_ : oddly confident and secure in her own skin.

“You don’t need it,” he says, but he kisses her again when she tries to pull back. “Do me a favor?”

Brienne sighs, and she arches a very imperious eyebrow at him.

“I already _told_ you I’d…”

“No, not that,” he says, grinning. “Though, yes, you _are_ going to win, and you _are_ going to deeply disappoint Margaery because I call dibs on your favor, _but_. When you win, can you take your helmet off and shake out your hair?”

“What? Why?” Brienne asks. She fits her helmet snugly on her head.

“Because I want to see it,” Jaime says. She sighs, and the sound of it echoes from the helmet, and he grins, because he knows she’s going to.

Brienne leaves him at the fence and goes out to the field to await the start of the melee, and Jaime makes his way to his seat beside Margaery.

“Do you wish you could join her?” she asks, and Jaime shrugs. The truth is that he’d _love_ to join her, but he only got his cast off yesterday, and he knows it’ll be some time before he’s ready to swing a fake sword around. And he has to admit that there’s something thrilling about sitting on the sidelines and watching her.

When he was young, even before he knew it was her, thoughts of his soulmate had this aura of _rescue_. From his father, from his codependence with his sister, from the vaguely helpless feelings of inadequacy that he certainly would not have been able to describe when he was a child. Maybe he didn’t even know what he needed rescue _from_ , but he craved it. There was so much about his family and about his life that made him feel fear. Or, if not fear, at least uneasiness. The soulmark was like a totem. A promise of future constancy. There was one person in his life who would love him without fail or qualification. They would _always_ love him, because they were fated to. They would never hurt him. He saw the sword through the eyes of a child who believed in uncomplicated things like _happily ever after_.

And even now, even knowing that not every soulmark is a guarantee, he still feels it. More, even, because it’s Brienne. He cheers with Margaery, and he claps, and he jumps to his feet and shouts every time Brienne looks like she’s about to lose a fight. He’s not a child anymore, but he feels like one still. There is a joy in watching Brienne fight that stirs something in him that he forgot as he grew up. Tales of knights and heroes and damsels in distress. Princes rescuing fair maidens from towers. Maybe it wasn’t as dramatic as all that. Maybe he didn’t need _rescuing_ in the way a maiden in a story needed rescuing, but sometimes it feels like he did. And sometimes it feels like Brienne rode up to his tower on a white horse and pledged to win his freedom from the dragons that kept him locked away.

He knows she would say he did most of the work himself, and he did. But she was the one who made him _want_ to be a better person. She deserves at least a little of the credit.

Brienne and Loras are the final two standing, and it is no surprise to Jaime when Brienne wins the day. There are already cheers going up around the arena, and they get even louder when Brienne takes off her helmet and shakes out her hair, her eyes meeting Jaime’s with an amused grin when she does it. It is easily the second-hottest thing he’s ever seen.

“She’s a girl,” cries a child somewhere near the back of the stands. “She’s _amazing_!” and Jaime feels a satisfied rush of pride. Brienne. _His_ Brienne. And he is hers.

Margaery pulls him to his feet as the crowd gives her a standing ovation. The actor playing the part of the king hands Brienne the replica sword that is meant to be the prize. He also hands her the crown. Brienne takes it, and she grins, and she walks to the side of the arena where Jaime and Margaery wait.

“Oh, you _dick_ ,” Margaery mutters when she realizes that Brienne has locked eyes with Jaime. Jaime gives her his cheekiest grin and leans out so that Brienne can reach up and place the crown on his head. A blue and purple flowered crown.

“My king of love and beauty,” Brienne says, seriously enough that he knows she’s holding back laughter. The crowd continues to cheer. People love a good romance. Brienne stands on her toes, and she cups his jaw, and she grins as she leans up to kiss him. The people in the stand grow louder, so starkly opposite from the way the kids at school have reacted to see them together. Jaime can’t get enough of it. He’ll come here every week if she lets him.

When they pull back, Brienne’s eyes are crinkled at the corners with amusement, and he adjusts the crown on his head.

“My knight in shining armor,” he says, and she laughs at him, and someday he will tell her exactly how much he means it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew, there ya have it, kiddos. Thank you for reading this, and for commenting, and for brightening my day a bit! I really appreciate it, and now I'm going to let myself sleep and maybe next time wait until I'm actually finished with a story before speed-writing it in like a couple of weeks! 
> 
> (no but for real, thank you, you all have been very lovely!)


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